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BT 1101 .P35 1877 
Palmer, Ray, 1808-1887. 
Hints on the formation of 
religious opinions 


1B eed ae 


ON THE 


FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 


ADDRESSED ESPECIALLY TO 
YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


BY 


REV. RAY "PALMER, D. D,, 


‘Hold fast that which is good.”—1 Tusss. v. 21. 


NEW YORK: 
A.S. BARNES & COMPANY, 


1877, 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
‘a in 2022 with funding from 
| Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https ‘//archive.org/details/hintsonformationC 
ae . : oe oe 


Preface. 


Tue following discourses are not addressed to 
positive unbelief. A different method would be 
necessary in order to the hopeftil treatment of 
this. They were prepared for the benefit of those 
who, having been educated into a full belief of 
the Christian faith, have found themselves, on 
coming to maturity, or afterwards, disturbed with 
inward questionings and doubts. The design 
‘was, by hints in relation to some of the more 
important subjects, to assist such in giving their 
thoughts a right direction, and in confirming 
themselves intelligently in their early religious 
convictions. The reader will not expect to find | 
in popular addresses the completeness of discussion 7 
which belongs to the class-room, but only such a 
style of treatment as the occasion and the special 


‘end in view demanded. In the present state of 


vi PREFACE. 


the popular mind, there are doubtless great num- 
bers of the best educated young people of our 
country who, whether they avow it or not, are in 
the state of uncertainty and hesitation to which 
we have referred. To such it is hoped these 
pages may have an interest, and render some 
timely aid. , R P. 


: a 


Contents. 


L Evils of a state of Scepticism, «-. wae 
Il. Nature of Reasoning and of Proof, eee 
III. Responsibility of Men for their Opinions, ... 
IV. The Practical Value of Opinions, eRe 
V. Belief in the Being of God, eee Bae 
VI. Argument from Design for the Divine Existence, 


VII. The Christian Revelation to be Presumed Divine, 


VIII. Christianity authenticated in the Experience of its Power, 


IX. Christianity a Religion of Facts, ase 
X. Mystery no Obstacle to Faith, ... nee 
XI. The Highest Evidence may not produce Belief, 


XII. The Dark Things of Life in the Light of Revelation, 


XIII. The Gospel the Sole Hope of the World, .. 
XIV. Good to be chosen as a Guide, ..- ae 
XV. The Value of a Life as related to our Time, 


128 
146 
164 
178 
193 
209 
231 
247 


RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 


ik 
Gils of w State of Scepttcism. 


Hes. xiii. 9: Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines : 
for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace. 


] HAVE been for some time proposing to myself to 
address to the congregation, more particularly to the 
younger portion of it, some thoughts on the formation of 
religious opinions, The vital importance of the topic as 
related to the present state of the popular mind, and the 
consideration that there is growing up among us so large 
a class of intelligent young persons, many of whom have 
enjoyed superior advantages of education, have seemed to 
render it specially proper that our attention should be 
turned in this direction. I am aware that a full and 
thorough discussion of the subject would involve the 
treating of some questions too abstruse and difficult for 
popular discourse ; but without proposing to say all that 


9 EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 


such a discussion would require, it may at least be possible 
to give such hints as may be useful to the thoughtful and 
candid inquirer. This is what I shall attempt to do. 

The importance to be attached to the forming of opinions, 
in any case, will of course be proportioned to the intrinsic 
moment of the matter to which they relate. The fact 
that we gather here from week to week is itself an 
acknowledgment that, in our judgment, the things per- 
taining to religion are things of the gravest import. Itis 
a virtual avowal that we are convinced, at least in our 
understandings, that our religious responsibilities are 
most weighty and solemn in their bearing, our religious 
interests the most sacred and precious of all the interests 
of our being, and religious truth, of course, of all truth 
the most highly to be prized. Whatever directly con- 
cerns our characters and training as the responsible crea- 
tures of God and the heirs of immortality, does certainly 
demand our earnest consideration. 

The present topic of discourse will be that which is 
naturally suggested by the text: the evils of an habitually 
unsettled and fluctuating state of mind, as compared with 
the fixed stability which rests on the solid foundations of 
truth, thoroughly examined and cordially received and 
held. | 

It would seem hardly to be expected, where ample 
means of religious knowledge are enjoyed, that such a 
state of mind should be a common thing. The habitual 
study of Christianity in its sacred records and in its prac- 
tical results, from childhood up to adult years, would 
gradually, it might naturally be supposed, lead to a full 


EVILS Of A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 1] 


and satisfying conviction of its truth, or else to the de- 
cided and conclusive rejection of it as a false and worth- 
less system. The fact, however, it is certain is quite 
otherwise. Perhaps in nothing does the perverted condi- 
tion of our moral nature more appear than in the inapti- 
tude which men naturally exhibit to comprehend truths 
which are spiritual in their nature, and the difficulty with 
which they are brought to feel their reality, and to per- 
ceive their practical applications in relation to themselves. 
This want of susceptibility to the truths pertaining to 
God and religion, was recognised by Socrates and Plato, 
by Cicero and Seneca, as well as by Paul and John. 
Deism not less than Christianity has encountered and 
acknowledged it. It is, indeed, too plain to be denied. 
It is a fact that stands out in prominence on the bistory 
of the race. that the clearness with which the moral and 
spiritual truths which most concern 1nen are perceived, 
and the strength of the impression which they make; are 
not at all in proportion, generally, to the evidence with 
which they are attended. Hence doubt very frequently 
exists where the materials of certainty are ample. 

Of those who are educated under religious light and 
influence, and who are led in early life to accept Christi- 
anity, a very considerable number sooner or later find 
themselves to have reached a state in which they are dis- 
posed to question almost everything pertaining to religion, 
More commonly this crisis arrives in advanced youth, or 
on the verge of manhood. Up to that time the mind has 
been content to take as truth, on the authority of others, 
and with but little question, whatever may have been 


12 EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 


taught it. It has acquiesced, without serious difficulty, 
in the statements of parents and teachers as to what were 
the claims of duty; and has generally taken it for granted, 
however little it may practically have felt their power, 
that the views in which it has been trained to rest 
are sound. But now there comes a change. Of the 
views and impressions which childhood entertained on a 
variety of subjects, advancing years and knowledge have 
shown many to be erroneous. In respect to others, it is 
now perceived that although they may be true, they have 
been received without examination, and retained by the 
force of habit or authority, and not from an apprehension 
of the evidence by which they are made certain. It is 
not strange that such discoveries should beget a doubting 
spirit—a disposition to doubt even with as little reason 
and as little justice as was exhibited before in yielding an 
assent. In this state of mind the inquirer is inclined to 
quéstion everything, as he once was to believe everything. 
He has found a few things, or, if you please, many things, 
to be false, and so he is afraid to believe that anything is 
true. He passes, by a not unnatural process, from the 
extreme of credulity to the extreme of scepticism. 

' No wonder that, in such a state of feeling, the truths of 
religion and its claims should come to be questioned 
with a greater or less degree of earnestness; and inasmuch 
as they make a strong appeal to the conscience on the 
mere statement of them, and aside from all proof, and 
also involve, if they are what they seem, the highest of all 
interests, it is only natural that the result should be an 
inward strife, perplexed and troubled thoughts, and a rest- 


EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTIC/SM. 13 


less uncertainty of mind whenever these subjeets are con- 
sidered. As an aggravation of the evil, too, it is just at 
this same period that the youthful heart begins to feel the 
temptations that solicit appetite and kindle passion, 
attracting to self-indulgence and the pursuit of worldly 
pleasure. It is perceived that religion speaks with a 
grave and earnest voice; that she commands self-discipline 
and self-restraint; that she forbids to make life a mere 
chase after selfish gratifications, and insists that great and 
difficult duties should be undertaken and laboriously dis- 
charged. Here, then, are reasons to the young just be- 
ginning to look out on life’s illusions, for wishing that 
the teachings of religion may not, after all, be true; and 
the excited wish is likely to exert a powerful influence on 
the judgment, and greatly to increase the difficulty of 
weighing these teachings with candid impartiality. Be- 
tween a doubting frame of mind and the drawing of 
inclination on the one hand, and the wants of the soul and 
the urgent power of religious truth, upon the other, the 
individual hesitates, and balances, and wavers, and seems 
to himself to be standing among shifting sands, where he 
can plant his feet on nothing that is firm. 

At this point one of three things must happen: Either 
the mind must become utterly lost to truth, and settle 
itself on the ultimately fatal grounds of false opinion; or 
it must drift on unfixed, full of uncertainty, and driven 
now this way and now that on the troubled sea of doubt ; 
or, lastly, it must lay hold of the strong cable of sound 
evidence, and intelligently and deliberately cast anchor on 
the sure foundations of the truth. There are doubtless 


14 EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 


some who do succeed in confirming themselves in false- 
hood beyond the chance of recovery. We are sure, also, 
that there are those who gain a hold on truth which 
nothing can relax, and which permanently sets their hearts 
at rest. But how large a number fall into the interme- 
diate class, the class of perpetual doubters !—of unstable 
souls, who habitually live in the disastrous twilight of 
uncertain speculation, and are carried about by diverse 
and strange doctrines, always catching at a new absurdity 
to relieve the weariness of dwelling on the last; who, in 
short, are very much in the condition of Milton’s fallen 
angels when they— 
“ Reasoned high 

Of Providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate, 

And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.” 

What can be more deplorable than this unnatural, this 
morbid bewilderment of the soul? A rational nature was 
surely never made to live in a realm of phantoms that for 
ever mock.it by putting on new shapes. Such a state is, 
of all things, to be dreaded. 

For, in the first place, it must needs be an exceedingly 
unhappy state. To all minds that have received even a 
moderate degree of cultivation, it is a source of positive 
pleasure to have, on all important subjects, clear views 
and well-defined opinions. The healthful faculties de- 
light in reaching and grasping truth when excited to in- 
quiry. They are gratified at being able to settle things 
with certainty. So, on the contrary, it is painful to the 
sound mind to grope about in the “ everlasting fog”—to 
be threading backward and forward the mazy labyrinths 


EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 15 


of vague inquiry, which chases shadows and catches at 
emptiness, finding nothing solid on which it can rely. 
This, we say, is the constitutional law of the mind, let 
the subject about which it inquires be what it may. 

But if the matter in question be one on the right un- 
derstanding of which great consequences are depending, 
there must be, in addition to the doubtfulness, the pain 
of anxious apprehension. The fear of what calamities 
may, soon or late, result from failure to ascertain the truth, 
will often haunt the mind and mingle more or less with 
all its thoughts. Religion, it is clearly seen, if it be any- 
thing, is of the highest imaginable interest ; and to miss 
the truth in such an affair, may, it cannot but be felt, in- 
volve irreparable loss, disaster that nothing can retrieve. 
Here is a most effectual cause of disquiet to the soul. 
How can a man have inward peace, when it is wholly un- 
certain, in his view, whether he is the offspring of an In- 
finite Mind, or of a blind chance; whether he has a nature 
essentially angelic, or is only a better sort of brute; 
whether he has any certain guide to duty, or is left to find 
it out by accident; and whether, if he survive the tomb, 
his happiness or misery will, or will not, be then at all 
affected by his present character and conduct? Rest con- 
tent with such questions as these unsettled! A fool may 
a man of reflection cannot. You might as well rest 
content on a stormy sea, when you know not whether 
your ship be sound or rotten; your chart and compass re- 
liable or worthless; the hoarse murmur which you hear, 
the howling of the wind, or the roar of the surf that beats 
on the fatal rocks! Nothing but profound stupidity can 


16 EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 


give the mind that lives in a state of wavering uncertainty 
respecting the essentials of religion anything that really 
deserves the name of peace. 

It is also evident, still further, that a state of chronic 
scepticism tends greatly.to enfeeble both the character and 
the mind. There is a very cnmmon mistake on this point. 
It is no unusual thing to meet with those, more particu- 
larly among young men, who have the notion that there 
is something indicative of a superior mind in a state of 
doubt. They imagine it a mark of originality and pene- 
tration to be sceptical about those things which others 
confidently believe—to be starting difficulties in oppdsi- 
tion to all opinions; and so they are led rather to culti- 
vate an unsettled habit of mind, than ‘to endeavour to 
escape it. But the truth is just the reverse of this. A 
really vigorous and healthful mind cannot be satisfied to 
continue long in a dubious state, when, as is true in the 
matter of religion, the materials for forming fixed conclu- 
sions areat hand. A strong mind presses on to a decision. 
It is content only when getting at results. A sceptical 
habit—observe I do not say a season of temporary ques- 
tioning, but a chronic habit of doubting—most generally 
indicates a want of mental energy to lay hold of evidence 
and to appreciate its force; a lack of the strength of mind 
required in order to rise above the prejudices and biases 
that embarrass and tend to warp the judgment. It be- 
trays an intellectual feebleness already existing and likely 
to perpetuate itself. 

For when the mind has been allowed, and rather en- 
couraged, to wander among the mists of doubt; to loak 


EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 17 


rather after difficulties, than after proofs; it seems to be- 
come incapable of logical deduction and unsusceptible to 
the effect of evidence. Having accustomed itself to 
waver, it cannot, when it would, decide; or, if it has in 
any case decided, it cannot hold to its decision. What 
yesterday it examined and concluded to be true, it is to- 
day, just as much as ever, disposed again to question. 
There is a manifest enfeebling of the power by which the 
mind, when in a vigorous state, makes use of evidence to 
establish itself with collected firmness on the solid ground 
of truth. That it should be so results from well-known 
laws of mind. 

It will also be true that in proportion to this loss of 
force of intellect, there will be likewise a loss of general 
force of character. He who is unable to decide with 
promptness, will not be able to execute with vigour. The 
habitual vacillation of the mind will be sure to exhibit 
itself in a feeble, time-serving, irresolute course of action. 
There is no class of truths which operates so powerfully in 
forming the whole character as religious truths. There 
are no motives which produce such energy of purpose as 
the motives which religious faith supplies. <A state of 
habitual doubting therefore, while it tends, whatever be 
the subject, to infirmity of mind and character, must tend 
to this with special foree and certainty when it is in rela- 
tion to the essentials of religion itself that the habit is in- 
dulged. Live without any settled views in politics, in 
philosophy, in practical economy, and you will be a weaker 
man than you would be with fixed convictions in relation 
to those subjects. But live in dim bewilderment in re- 


18 EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 


gard to the great matter of religion, and the enfeebling in~ 
fluence will be felt in a far higher and more mischievous 
degree. It will make you vastly inferior, as a man, to what 
you would have been with a settled religious faith. 

There is yet another evil result of the habit of mind in 
question. It is very liable to impair the dove of truth, and 
to lower the estimate set on it by the judgment. Truth 
has been well defined to be “the reality of things.” To 
know truth is to know things as they are. On knowing 
them in this manner, on having a right understanding 
especially of those things that directly relate to us, our 
highest welfare essentially depends. Nothing therefore, 
in fact, is so precious to us as truth. As Solomon has 
said—the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise 
of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. It is more 
precious than rubies; and all the things thou canst desire 
are not to be compared to it. God has, accordingly, given 


the mind an instinctive love for truth, a natural desire to — 


know things as they are. It is this that prompts the in- 
quisitiveness of childhood—the prying curiosity that de- 
sires to have all mysteries cleared up, and that presses in- 
quiry often back to the very elements of thought. It is 
an important end of education to encourage and strengthen 
this desire, and give it a right direction; and observation 
and experience show that, in respect to many subjects at 
least, it is, on the other hand, capable of being weakened, 
and almost or quite destroyed. 

it is found, for example, especially easy to repress the 
instinctive desire to know, when there is occasion to ap- 
prehend that the knowledge of the truth might be for any 


———— litt ee ee 


EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 19 


reason painful; and this is the case invariably in respect 
to sinful man when he inquires about religion. While on 
this, as on other subjects, he feels the natural desire for 
knowledge, there are conscious reasons growing out of his 
own character, which prompt him to resist this desire, 
and rather to shrink from full and certain knowledge, than 
to seek it. He is inclined to indulge himself in some- 
thing. The question, Is it right? suggests itself. If he 
presses the inquiry, he may find himself obliged to deny 
his inclination; and he will be very likely for this reason 
not to press it. The appetite for truth may yield to the 
stronger appetite for self-indulgence which now has pos- 
session of the mind, In every such case, of course, the 
love of truth must necessarily be weakened. There will 
be less appreciation of its value than before; and if the 
oftener the love of truth is repressed for such a reason, 
the feebler it becomes, it must finally be destroyed. But 
this is what is happening all the while in the unsettled, 
wavering, and doubtful mind. The inclination to indulge 
in all sorts of curious speculations and even idle fancies ; 
to wander round and round from one opinion to another 
without seriously attempting to settle upon any, resists 
and gradually overpowers the instinctive appetite for 
truth. Truth now loses her attractiveness. There is a 
growing insensibility to her inestimable value ; and at 
last there comes an indifferent recklessness that cares but 
little whether it has the truth or not; and which is ready 
to adopt the foolish maxim—that it does not matter 
whether one’s opinions accord with the reality of things 
or not. Great, inexpressibly great, isthe mischief done, when 


20 EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 


the rational soul, in its constitution noble, is thus virtually 
divested of one of its highest and most glorious attributes. 
It is fallen and debased, indeed, when its inward longing 
after truth, and especially religious truth, is felt no more. 

It remains only to say finally, that a state of sceptical 
uncertainty is attended with great danger as regards its 
last result. To doubt about anything is, of course, to ad- 
mit the possibility that it is true. To doubt about the 
claims and obligations of religion is to allow that we are 
not sure that these are not founded in reality. But while 
those who are floating on the sea of doubt, confess, by 
their very uncertainty, that the teachings of religion may 
quite possibly be true, they are sure to act, in the main, 
as though certain they were false. So long, for example, 
as you doubt whether there be a God, you will act, almost 
with certainty, as though you knew there were none; that 
is, you will live to yourself alone. So long as you doubt 
whether the Bible be a supernatural revelation, you will 
allow it to have little if any more weight with you than if 


you certainly knew its claims to be unfounded; you will ‘ 


not suffer it to control you. So long as you doubt whether 
you are to live beyond the grave, you will demean your- 
self, for the most part, as though the contrary were the 
fact ; you will confine your thoughts to the present life. 
And then, by the supposition, when you have lived and 
acted as though these things are false, they may, after all, 
turn out to be the great and solemn realities which they 
are believed by religious men to be. When you shall have 
wasted life and opportunities in urging difficulties, and 
asking curious questions, and indulging in speculative 


EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 21 


scepticism, you may, as your doubts imply, awake to the 
serious certainty that there is a God, that the Scriptures 
are divine, that your spirit is immortal, that life was a 
season of probation, and that eternity is the scene of 
righteous and unending retribution, We are not now as- 
serting, let it be observed, that these things are indeed so; 
we are only saying that since by doubting, you concede 
that they possibly are true, even to your own judgment 
it must be clear that you run the tremendous risk of jind- 
ing them all true, though you have lived as if they were 
all fiction. It needs no words to show that if you live as 
though the truths of religion were mere dreams, and it 
shall finally turn out that they are great realities, you are 
undone inevitably, and that for ever. This, then, is the 
amazing peril of resting in a dubious, unestablished frame. 
Even those who do this cannot but perceive that they run 
the hazard, the unspeakably awful hazard of a wretched, 
lost eternity. Religion and godliness, according to their 
view of things, hang trembling in equal balance, The 
side of religion may, they admit, preponderate; and if it 
does, they have made everlasting shipwreck of their souls! 
How much to be deprecated and dreaded is a position that 
involves continually the danger of a fall from which there 
is no recovery ! | 

Here, then, are weighty reasons for regarding it as a 
very serious evil to be in habitual doubt in regard to 
the truths and duties of religion—reasons which make 
it appear in the highest degree desirable that the heart 
should be established. Of course it follows that nothing 
should be done by any thoughtful person to favour such 


22 EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 


a state, but that, on the contrary, diligent and resolute 
effort should be made to avoid, or to escape it. When 
in the gradual unfolding and progress of the mind, that 
questioning, inquiring period, of which we spoke in the 
beginning, comes, it is a most interesting and critical 
period in one’s history. It need not launch one on a 
boundless sea of doubt; engendering the chronic, intel- 
lectual, and moral disease of scepticism without end. It 
may be, it ought to be, the season in which the mind, 
enlightened and well directed, obtains the mastery over 
prejudice and inclination; lays hold of truth with a clear 
understanding of its grounds, and finds in it so received 
an abiding test. 

Do any of you, my young hearers, find the impressions 
of your childhood giving way, in some degree, so that you 
feel disposed to question them and to demand on what 
foundation they are based ? You see with what serious- 
ness you should regard the crisis. Never, in all your life, 
has there been a time when you so greatly needed the 
counsel of your kindest, most faithful, and judicious friends. 
To listen now to the cavils of the scoffer ; to neglect calm, 
honest thought and careful reading; to indulge the affecta- 
tion of singularity in your opinions, or the taste for idle 
speculation ; to please yourselves with the fancy that it is 
a mark of manliness to doubt ; is almost certainly to place 
yourselves in that permanently evil state which we have 
been considering. Such a course is worse than folly; it 
is madness such as words cannot express. 

Yes! Believe it, my intelligent young friend—the poor 
way-faring man, who wanders homeless and friendless over 


EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 23 


the wide world, finding never a voice of greeting nor a 
resting-place in which he may take up his abode, is far— 
far less an object of compassion, than he whose soul is 
driven about perpetually in the chaos of confused and. 
dubious thought, where all is dim and shadowy, and can 
find nothing that is stable; who as to the highest and 
most vital questions of his being, has established nothing, 
and positively believes nothing! Rather than suffer your- 
selves to slide into such a state, it were wisdom to suspend 
all other business, to shut yourselves up in the chamber 
of meditation and research, and to bend the undivided 
energies of your minds on this one work of reaching con- 
clusions which will satisfy ; and this with humble, earnest 
prayer to the Father of lights for that divine illumination 
without which spiritual things are never clearly seen by 
any of mankind. Nevercan you say that truth is beyond 
your reach, till you have thus done your utmost to discern 
and to embrace it, in simplicity and honesty of mind. 
When you have actually done this, you will not wish to 
say it. We say nothing now as to what conclusions you 
will come to, when you shall have done your whole duty 
in settling your opinions; but we do say, without any 
hesitation, that conclusions of some kind—sound conclu- 
sions—conclusions that will set your minds at rest—you 
will be sure to reach. 

Tt must be so. No greater absurdity can easily be con- 
ceived, than that of supposing such a being as man, with 
an intellectual nature, whose instincts yearn for truth, 
placed in the midst of this grand universe of things, 
without the power to know with certainty so much as 


24 EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM. 


is essential to his welfare. No, rest assured you are 
not doomed to so miserable a lot. You can have satis- 
faction on all really vital questions, if you will) You 
may plant yourselves, if you will do it, where, though 
floods come, and the tempests beat, and the refuges of 
error are all swept away, you can stand calmly and in 
serenity of soul, and feel your foundations firm. Believe 
-it—nay rather, make the experiment for yourselves, and 
know it with a happiness that cannot be described. There 
is LIGHT—and you were made to see it. There is REALITY 
—and you were made to find it. There is religious TRUTH 
—the very truth for which your soul is groping—and you, 
you may grasp the inestimable treasure, and make it 
your own blessed and permanent possession. Dread to 
live doubters, as you would dread a moral pestilence which 
was certain to prove fatal to your soul, 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 25 


TE 


Hature of Reasoning und of Brook. 
1 Tuxss. v. 21: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 


T is the high prerogative of man’s intelligent nature to 
discriminate between truth and error. This is te be 
done by careful, honest, and patient examination, and 
by the application of the proper tests. When facts or 
opinions pertaining to any subject present themselves to 
our attention, it is not until they have been tried by the 
understanding and established by the decision of the 
judgment, that we can properly be said to know them. 
Having fairly weighed all things, we are then able to hold 
fast that which is good. 

In referring to the evils of a permanent state of uncer 
tainty and doubt, we have insisted on applying the mind 
resolutely and with vigour at the outset to the work of 
settling itself on something with the least possible delay. 
In so insisting, we have assumed, what it seems to us 
against all reason to deny, that in matters so vital to 
our welfare as those which religion necessarily involves, 
substantial truth must be a possible attainment to sincere 
and diligent inquirers. It may be true that no assiduity, 
on our part, can save us from falling into some compara- 
tively trifling errors; but certainly it must be possible to 
save ourselves from such as are fundamental in their nature 


26 NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 


—such as will have an essential bearing on the highest 
interests of our being. Of what use, pray, are the rational 
powers in which we boast ourselves, if they will not avail 
us at least so far as this? 

But in order to the right use of our faculties, and of 
our means of knowledge, in the pursuit of religious truth, 
it is indispensable that we distinctly understand what 
mode of reasoning, and what principles of evidence, are 
demanded in the discussion of the great themes of reli- 
gion. A wrong impression on the mind as to the kind of 
proof to be expected, in order to the establishment of par- 
ticular truths, is without doubt one of the greatest, and at 
the same time oneof the most common sources of embarrass- 
ment to those who are seriously endeavouring to settle their 
religious opinions. Manysuch persons have never had their 
attention called to the nature of evidence ; and have not been 
led to notice that different subjects require widely different 
kinds and degrees of proof, and even directly opposite 
methods of inquiry. From mistaken apprehensions as to 
these material things, they have been baffled in their earnest 
investigations when they should have arrived at certainty. 

It is my present object, therefore, to explain the nature 
of the reasoning and the proof by which religious truth in 
general is established. If the topic seems abstruse, and 
requires some special attention to understand it, the vast 
importance of it practically in relation to religious inquiry, 
must be my apology for taxing your attention with ib ha 
will try to make what I wish to say as clear as possible. 

First then, I observe that there are two kinds of reason- 
ing employed to establish truth. One of these is called 


| 
a 
Mi 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 27 


demonstrative, the other probable, or moral. This dis- 
tinction is not a mere refinement of the schools; it is 
founded in the nature of things, and may be comprehended 
by any person of ordinary understanding. Demonstrative 
reasoning starts with something which is known, advances 
with positive certainty at each successive step, and ends 
in a conclusion that is absolutely irresistible, commanding 
the unqualified assent of every person who understands 
the statement of the process. Moral reasoning, on the 
other hand, proceeds by adding probability to probability, 
until there is no more room for reasonable doubt ; and, 
from the nature of the case, a given amount of moral 
evidence may produce very different degrees of conviction 
in the minds of different persons. It is a proposition in 
geometry, that the angles contained in any triangle, are 
together equal to two right angles. The proof of this is 
drawn directly from the nature of lines and angles as 
previously defined ; and the certainty of the conclusion is 
the same to every person in the world who is able to com- 
prehend the terms employed. This is demonstration. I 
am told for the first time that there was such a man as 
Julius Cesar. I demand the proof. A variety of facts 
are adduced in evidence, which separately rest on different 
authorities, and some of which have more and some have 
less weight, when taken by themselves ; but all together, 
they prove that such a person did exist beyond a question, 
though not beyond the conceivable possibility that the 
contrary should be true. This is probable, or moral 
reasoning. It does not start in premises, nor end in con- 
clusions, which are certain in the very nature of things. 


28 NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 


The two methods, then, are seen to be altogether un- 
like. The one determines what is necessarily true; the 
other what is true in fact. A demonstration is wholly 
worthless if it be not absolutely perfect. A course of 
moral reasoning, on the contrary, may have great weight 
although it involves many possibilities of error. In the 
one case, conviction is entire at every step of the whole 
process ; in the other, it is gradually wrought as the argu- 
ment advances, and becomes stronger and stronger the 
further it is carried, each fact or circumstance combining 
to establish the conclusion. 

In the next place, it is important to be observed that 
moral reasoning may produce as strong conviction in the 
mind, as firm a belief of the truth to which it has respect, 
as that which is produced by demonstration. It is very 
far from being true that nothing can be received by the 
mind as certain, which is not shown to be necessary in 
the nature of things. If this were so, then there would 
be nothing certain to us, which requires to be proved at 
all, except the abstract truths of mathematics and geometry ; 
whereas there are, in point of fact, a thousand things not 
in themselves self-evident, which we believe as surely as 
our own existence, and to which demonstrative reasoning 
_cannot be applied. Indeed, in the determination of our 
conduct every day in the practical affairs of life, we are 
continually coming to conclusions and acting on them 
without the least misgiving, with as absolute certainty as 
the mind is capable of feeling, where moral evidence— the 
evidence of probabilities—alone is possible. Of course, 
if this be so, the fact that any particular truth does not 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 29 


admit of demonstration, by no means makes it certain 
that it does not admit of proof—of being established to 
the entire satisfaction of the mind. If this matter is not 
clearly understood, there will be continual embarrassment 
in the attempt to settle truth. 

Let us illustrate, then, for the sake of clearness. You 
are a merchant. You go to the post-office, and take from 
it a letter to your address, You receive it with full con- 
viction that it comes from your business correspondent at 
New Orleans. ‘You are as sure of this as you are that two 
and two make four ; and nothing can add to the strength of 
your assurance. But on what is this assurance grounded ? 
You have not, and cannot have, the evidence of demon- 
stration. Demonstrative reasoning, from its very nature, 
can have no application to such cases. Your proof is all 
of the moral, or probable kind. Your sure belief is pro- 
duced by a combination of circumstances which, according 
to the laws of the human mind, have all the force of de- 
monstration, while not one element of the thing is really 
involved. This an analysis will show you. 

Your ship, we will suppose, was expected to reach her 
port at a certain date; this letter bears that date, and 
purports to give an account of her arrival. This is one 
circumstance. You put on board the ship a freight of 
hay ; and also some special article, say a few barrels of 
choice fruit, as a present to a friend ; and the letter men- 
tions that these are all in good condition. Here is another 
authenticating item. You sent a verbal message by the 
master of the vessel to your agent—the letter clearly im- 
plies that this had been delivered. Your son went pas- 


30 NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 


senger on board, and the letter refers to him as well. You 
forwarded by the master an order that your agent should 
enclose to you a draft of a particular amount and tenor ; 
the letter contains precisely such a draft. You are 
familiar with the handwriting of your agent; and you 
recognise this letter as like the rest. And finally, you 
have a private mark which he is instructed to place on 
every letter that he writes to you, and you find it as usual 
upon this. 

What then can be more plain, than that this letter has 
absolutely conclusive proof of authenticity—proof as con- 
vincing to the mind as any demonstration in geometry. 
Yet this proof is all of the moral kind. It does not shake 
your confidence in the genuineness of the’ letter—not in 
the least—that there is a conceivable possibility that some 
one has found out everything relating to your vessel and 
your business, has acquired the handwriting and possessed 
himself of the private mark, and has written you a ficti- 
tious letter, which the real one of your correspondent may 
in some particulars contradict to-morrow, and has made 
you a present of the draft enclosed. All this 2s possible. 
But it is enough for you that the probabilities that such 
a combination of proofs should be found deceptive are in- 
finitely small. There are a million to one in favour of the 
genuineness of the letter. You do not ask, you do not 
feel the slightest wish for greater certainty. 

From this example, therefore, it is manifest that moral 
reasoning is not at all inferior to demonstration in power 
to convince the mind so that it shall rest with absolute 
and unwavering confidence in the conclusions it has 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 31 


reached. Whoever objects to the certainty of any fact or 
truth which is properly supported by such reasoning, be- 
cause demonstrative evidence is wanting, objects without 
good ground ; and only shows that he himself does not 
understand the nature and the laws of reasoning. Nine 
out of ten, yea, even a much greater proportion of all the 
particular things which he believes without a doubt, and 
on which he daily without any hesitation grounds his con- 
duct, are believed on probable or moral evidence. ‘This 
is true in the case of every one of us. 

We advance then, in the third place, still another step 
and add, that the whole field of religious truth lies with- 
out the circle of things which admit of demonstration. 
In other words, demonstrative reasoning, in its strict 
sense, as we have defined it, has no possible application 
to those subjects with which religious faith is properly 
concerned. We do, indeed, in the examination of these 
subjects, sometimes resort to the form of demonstration ; 
but when we do this, we always start from premises which 
rest on moral proof; and so at last, it is on the certainty 
of moral proof alone that our conclusions stand. Moral 
reasoning tould not be more entirely out vf place in an 
astronomical calculation, than demonstrative reasoning 
would be in an attempt to settle a primary doctrine of re- 
ligion, 

We may refer, for the sake of illustration, to the being 
and attributes of God. We know of but one serious at- 
tempt to demonstrate the truth on this great subject— 
that of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Clarke; and _ this, 
although displaying great metaphysical acuteness, is uni- 


29 NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF 


versally regarded as a failure. The fatal difficulty is that 
the premises which he assumes as necessary truths are not 
such ; or, in other words, the very nature of the subject 
renders the application to it of such a mode of reasoning 
impossible. Instead, therefore, of demanding a demon- 
stration of the existence and attributes of the Deity, the 
inquirer who understands the true principles of reasoning 
will look for moral evidence; and if he perceives that 
there is such a kind and amount of moral proof as must, 
when properly appreciated, give a certainty beyond all 
reasonable doubt, he will ask for nothing more. 

Let it be supposed then, that on looking for proofs of 
the divine existence, you find the following facts :— 

First, that the notion of God, of divinity as one or 
many, is universal among mankind ; as though it were to 
the human soul a necessary notion. Next, that when the 
reasoning mind sets itself to reflect upon the subject, it 
finds along with the consciousness of its own existence, 
the consciousness also that it is not self-existent, and a 
conviction that there must be a self-existent being on 
whom it is dependent. Further, that in both body and 
mind there are found clear indications of adaptation and 
design ; that the eye is exquisitely constructed in relation 
to the light, the ear as curiously adjusted to the atmo- 
sphere, and every sense and every organ throughout pre- 
cisely fitted to its purpose ; and that the body, as a whole, 
is admirably suited to the entire necessities of material ex- 
istence. Then as to the mind, suppose, that it is observed 
to have just those instincts, susceptibilities, and powers 
that are demanded by the sphere in which it is ordained 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 33 


to move, and appears to be in its capabilities of thought, 
affection, and volition, a wonderful product of creative 
wisdom ; and that in the fact that it has a conscience, and 
an ineradicable sense of moral obligation, it seems to stand 
related to law, and of course to a lawgiver. Suppose still 

further, that without ifself, the intellect perceives the uni- 
"verse as not self-existent, though in fact existing; that 
nature in every part offers indications of a well-adjusted 
plan; that each particular object exhibits nice contriv- 
ances which fit it to sustain its own existence, if endowed 
with any kind of life, to answer its special end, and at the 
same time an obvious relation to the great system of which 
it forms a part. And finally, suppose that the gradations 
of animal and vegetable life, the general order, harmony, 
and beauty in the entire arrangement of the whole, is such 
as to give the conception of an impressive unity in the 
midst of an endless variety and multitude. It appears as 
one grand universe, to compose which an inconceivable 
number of separate parts, or objects, harmoniously con- 
spire. 

Whether these things actually are as now supposed, we 
may inquire hereafter. We only say for the present that 
if you should find them so; and if in the presence of 
such facts, your soul should acknowledge and even im- 
peratively demand a God, it would not disturb you that 
you had not a demonstration of the existence of a neces- 
sary infinite and eternal Being. You would have a moral 
argument carried to such a height of conclusiveness and 
strength, that it would be difficult to see how its convinc- 
ing power could be increased. You would be in substan- 


34 NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 


tially the same condition as on the reception of the letter 
in the case already imagined. A million to one, as in the 
other instance, you must say within yourself, there is a 
supreme intelligent Cause, a God, as the Author of the 
universe ; and yet you would be perfectly aware that 
there was nothing of demonstration in the case. You 
would not only feel no need of such a thing, but you could 
not help perceiving that the nature of the subject utterly 
forbade it. Where the proofs are all moral, the reasoning 
must be moral. There are no postulates or axioms in re- 
lation to the existence and attributes of God on which a 
course of demonstrative reasoning can be based. 

In like manner the question of divine revelation may 
be seen not to belong to the province of inquiry within 
which the demonstrative method can properly be applied. 
No definitions, no first truths, or known relations of things, 
can possibly be laid down on which to reason with mathe- 
matical precision here. It requires but a moment's 
thought to see that to expect or to demand that a revela- 
tion, if made, should be supported by evidence of this 
sort, would be to demand what, in the nature of things, is 
impossible and absurd. You must, indeed, have proof— 
in a matter of such moment, proof of the most conclusive 
and satisfying kind, in order to believe ; and if you find 
it at all, it must be in the moral form, one item added 
to another till there is no longer room for reasonable 
doubt. 

Look at the case as it-lies before the mind of one who 
after examination believes the truth of the Christian re- 
velation. He starts with what he deems the obvious need 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 35 


there was that God should reveal himself to men, and the 
extreme improbability that the infinitely Good and Wise 
would create a being with such endowments as those that 
belong to man, and then abandon him to helpless ignor- 
ance in respect to the highest relations and the most 
important interests of his being. He finds next a pro- 
fessed revelation, appearing worthy to have come from 
God and exhibiting in its contents marks of a super- 
human origin, claiming to have been received by special 
divine communications, and professing to be sustained by 
the evidence of various prophecies and miracles. In sup- 
port of these claims he brings together the historic testi- 
mony to the truth of the sacred records in which it is 
delivered ; the purity of its teachings and the grandeur of 
its disclosures ; its adaptation to the great wants of the 
human race ; the wonderful character, life, death, alleged 
resurrection and ascension of the Founder of Christianity, 
the entire spirit and character of the gospel as forbidding 
the supposition that it originated with wicked men ; its 
early successes and its permanent power and progress in 
the world ; its elevating influence on individual and social 
man whenever and wherever heartily received ; the celes- 
tial peace both for life and death which it has been found 
to carry to the heart, and finally its immeasurable supe- 
riority to all other religions. It is, I say, with all these 
and various other similar items, that the believer in revela- 
tion constructs the argument on which he rests ; an argu- 
ment rising, as he thinks, with the force of a mighty 
accumulation, to a degree of certainty that leaves nothing 


to be desired in order to complete conviction. While the 
3 


86 NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 


lack of proof would, of course, be fatal, the lack of demon- 
stration, it is plain, is only the lack of something that has 
no possible relation to such a matter. 

We need not refer particularly to other related truths of 
what is called revealed religion. The whole circle of 
spiritual doctrines, such as the Trinity, the incarnation, 
the atonement, the mission of the Holy Spirit, and others 
connected with these and resulting directly from them, so 
obviously belong to the sphere of moral reasoning, that 
the attempt to demonstrate them would be absurd, and of 
course to ask for demonstration is unreasonable and weak. 
If you assume the existence and attributes of God as 
proved by moral reasoning, you may, indeed, deduce in a 
demonstrative way from these as premises, some other im- 
portant truths respecting him ; and if on the same grounds 
you accept revelation as established, you may apply, in a 
qualified sense, the demonstrative style of argument in 
the determination of its particular doctrines. But in each 
case, since the premises rest on moral evidence, the cer- 
tainty of the conclusions to which you are conducted will 
rest of course on moral evidence. Such are the laws of 
reasoning, Such is the unalterable nature of things. 

We have only to add lastly, that the power of moral 
reasoning to produce conviction depends very materially 
on the state of the mind to which it is presented ; while 
the power of demonstrative reasoning does not depend on 
this at all. Of course we mean the state of the mind as to 
its dispositions, prejudices, and biases of every kind. This 
is a most essential point of difference between the two 
modes of settling truth, and must not be overlooked. 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 37 


Address the demonstration of a geometrical problem to 
any person whois competent to understand it, and no pre- 
conceived opinion, no aversion to the truth or wish that it 
should be otherwise, no unwillingness from any cause to 
be convinced, did these exist in ever so great strength, can 
make the smallest difference as to admitting the conclu- 
sion. The admission of it is absolutely and in the strict- 
est sense compelled. 'The mind has no power to hold back 
or to evade ; it must believe, or lose its rationality. But 
the case is widely different when you essay by moral argu- 
ment to lead a person to a conviction of any truth. In 
this case, as the process advances not from the necessary 
to the necessary, but from the probable to the probable, 
there is room, at every step, for the influence of personal 
feeling and partial judgment, and aversion to the truth, 
to affect the force of proof to a very great degree. That, 
in fact, it does this often, is a matter of familiar observa- 
tion. Moral evidence can have its proper force only when 
the mind is open, fair, and honest ; when divested of all 
prejudice, and truly willing and desirous to follow in the 
track of evidence, and to accept the results to which it 
leads. Go to a young man who has acquired a love for 
the exhilarating glass, but as yet does not indulge to 
inebriety. Convince him of the danger of his habit—of 
the moral certainty there is that, sooner or later, his course 
will bring him to a dishonoured grave. To offer him 
abundant proof that his path directly leads to such a ter- 
mination, is the easiest thing imaginable ; but actually to 
convince him, is on the contrary one of the most difficult. 
His appetite, his inclination, his habit already formed, so 


38 NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 


blind and pervert his judgment, that your reasoning, con- 
elusive though it be, is powerless upon him. Go to a 
person who is dishonest in his dealings, and daily puts in 
his pocket the gains of secret fraud. Repeat to him the 
adage that honesty is the best policy, as well as a high 
duty, and exhibit to him the proof. Your reasoning 1s 
sound and perfectly conclusive ; but with him it has no 
weight. He is under influences from the course of conduct 
he pursues, which indispose his mind to receive conviction, 
and which really neutralize the power of evidence. So it 
may be in a thousand cases, so it may be in regard to all 
the great and vital questions of religion. Just so far as 
the mind, in its reasonings on these, is swayed by any- 
thing besides the love of truth ; just so far as it is indis- 
posed by any opinion, passion, or wishes of its own 3—just 
so far it is unfitted to appreciate the moral reasonings by 
which they must of necessity be decided. It may be, 
therefore, it is plain, that the fundamental truths of reli- 
gion are, in fact, sustained by the highest and most 
decisive moral evidence, and yet some persons may be in 
such a state of mind in relation to these truths, that, to 
them, this evidence shall be ineffectual and nugatory. 
Those who are in a state of mind to see and appreciate 
the proof, may rest in them a well-established faith, while 
these, like men groping with shut eyes at noon-day, may 
be dark and bewildered in their scepticism. 

I have thus endeavoured to explain the nature and laws 
of reasoning, so far as the general object we have in view 
demanded. We have seen that there is an essential diffe- 
rence between demonstrative and moral reasoning, which 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 39 


limits the application of each to a certain class of subjects ; 
that moral reasoning may bring the mind to sure conclu- 
sions, no less than demonstration ; that the great ques- 
tions of religion do not admit of demonstration, but fall 
wholly within the sphere of moral proof; and, finally, 
that the force of this sort of proof will necessarily be very 
much affected by the state of mind that prevails at the 
time it is considered. 

The most important practical bearing of these views on 
the forming of religious opinions, will be shown in the 
following discourse. There is not time to enter on it now. 
I will simply ask you, in closing for the present, to consi- 
der a moment how much is necessarily involved in the 
work of forming your opinions rightly on the momentous 
subjects pertaining to religion. It is to be feared that too 
many young persons, even among the more intelligent, 
have little conception how great a work it is, and how 
much serious, careful thought and earnest application of 
the mind is needed to accomplish it. Many of ‘you, per- 
haps, have never once imagined that you had much to do 
in relation to the matter. You have had a vague impres- 
sion, not improbably, that the whole affair was of course 
to be left to time and chance ; arid that you had only to 
wait till you would see what these would bring. But if 
it is true, as you now cannot but perceive, that there is 
need of clear and accurate views as to the laws of reason- 
ing, and of careful discrimination in applying them ; if 
the mode of settling truth demanded by religious subjects, 
is that which supposes alike the highest activity and the 
best preparation of the mind,—then the task you have on 


40 NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 


hand is great and arduous, and must be very seriously at- 
tended to, or it will not be accomplished. If your mind 
is filled with questionings, you will not get permanent re- 
lief, without serious and earnest thought, the use of such 
helps as may lie within your reach, and especially an 
honest, heartfelt, daily application to the Fountain of all wis- 
dom, for divine illumination. It is always an unfavourable 
symptom—alas, how often it appears !—when, along with 
a state of doubt, there is seen an indisposition to sober 
and candid inquiry, and a want of seriousness and prayer- 
fulness of mind, and unmistakable signs of a prejudiced, 
uncandid temper. Truth will not reveal herself in her 
divine simplicity and beauty, her impressiveness and 
majesty, to those who have so little appreciation of her 
worth. 

Does it seem to any of you too great a task to search 
for divine wisdom in the way which has been indicated ? 
Are you unwilling to take the trouble to explore for your- 
selves, if doubts assail you, and that with an honest mind, 
the ground on which it is safe for you to rest 4 Are you 
inclined to save yourselves the pains of fair examination, to 
give ear to the specious suggestions of those who manifest 
an earnest desire to overturn the religious opinions which 
have been cherished’ by the best and wisest of mankind, 
and which have inspired their souls for noble deeds, and 
have blessed them richly with inward peace, not only liv- 
ing, but even in death itself? The main truths of the. 
Christian religion have tindeniably stood unshaken against 
all attacks for near two thousand years. This, of itself, 
affords a strong presumption that they are true, and is 


NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. Ay 


sufficient to justify you in refusing to accept, without the 
most thorough inquiry, the often superficial cavils of those 
who would reject them. It is certainly reasonable to look 
to the bottom of the matter if need be, and not to give 
them up without the most decisive reasons. 

Nor should any labour which may be needful in order 
to reach the truth in matters of religion appear excessive. 
What! Is not your rational nature the grand distinction 
of your being? Is not the pursuit of truth, especially the 
highest and most spiritual forms of truth, the most worthy, 
the very noblest employment of such a mind as yours ? 
Besides, what has become of those, in general, who have 
been content, in indolent neglect, to leave their religious 
views to be moulded by accidental influences? They 
have fallen, by thousands, into the miseries of perpetual 
doubt, and by thousands have perished in the inextricable 
entanglements of error. There is no safe alternative. 
You must learn the right mode of reasoning and apply it, 
you must read and reflect, not only with diligence and 
patience, but with a genuine honesty of mind ; or you 
cannot enjoy the pleasure and the peace of resting in clear 
views, with an abiding satisfaction, but must run the 
dreadful hazard of dying in the wilderness of falsehood 
and delusion. 

Can it be that there is one of us, who is so_slothful and 
senseless as not to be stirred by such considerations—who 
will not think it worth his while to reserve a portion of | 
those hours now given to trivial reading and fruitless 
thought, to be devoted in good earnest to the right study 
of religion? You will, of course, if you are wise, obtain 


42. NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 


judicious counsel for the shaping of your inquiries, so far 
as you may need it ; but you will feel that you have per- 
sonally a work to do. How can you be content, you 
especially whose eyes are glowing with the hidden fires of 
youth, and who feel in your bosoms the throbbings of an 
inextinguishable life, till you are fully satisfied, if you 
have been in doubt, whence you came, whither you are 
going, for what you have a being, and which of all the 
paths about you is for you the path of happiness and 
duty? Attain a sure foundation in the great matter of 
religion, and the infinite advantage will be yours. Neglect 
or fail to do it, and the darkness, the perplexity, the an- 
guish which will ultimately come, it must be for you in 
your own persons to endure, without relief and without a 
comforter. Prove all things—hold fast that which is 
good ! 


RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN FOR THEIR OPINIONS. 43 


IIL. 
Responsibility of Wen for their Opinions. 


JouN iii. 18: He that believeth on him is not condemned ; but he that 
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in 
the name of the only begotten Son of God. 


VERY reader of the Scriptures is aware that belief in 
Jesus Christ, and in those essential truths which 
stand in immediate relation to human duty and happiness, 
is there continually insisted on as animperative duty. It 
is so exhibited in the passage just recited. This is the 
work of God, said our Lord himself, that ye believe on 
him whom he hath sent. He that believeth shall be 
saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned. Of 
sin, because they believe not on me; as though their 
unbelief were the very sum and essence of their sin. 

To say nothing now of the divine authority of the 
Scriptures, we may observe that their style of teaching in 
reference to the duty of believing what may be known as 
true, is not at all peculiar. Every eminent moralist, 
whether of ancient or modern times, whether in name a 
heathen or a Christian, has taught the same doctrine as 
to the duty of accepting the primary truths of religion 
and morality ; those truths, that is, in respect to which 
the attainment of satisfactory conclusions was to be deemed 
a practicable thing. It is a remarkable fact, certainly, 


44 RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN 


and one worthy to be specially considered, that the wisest 
and most candid men of all ages and all nations, when 
they have addressed mankind with a view to their im- 
provement, have with one consent assumed that the act of 
believing, of assenting heartily to such moral and religious 
truths as are or may be known, is a matter of positive 
and solemn obligation—something which men are bound, 
and may be authoritatively required to do. It would 
seem that a thing so generally admitted to be true, and 
that by the soundest and most thoughtful minds, must be 
in itself nearly or quite self-evident, or at most, must 
admit of easy proof. 

Notwithstanding, however, this so general agreement 
among the best teachers of mankind, there are many who 
are unwilling to allow that belief can be a matter of 
obligation, and unbelief a ground of blame. This, indeed, 
is one of the most common subterfuges to which those 
who are avowed rejectors of revealed religion, and whose 
lives are at variance with its precepts, have been wont to 
betake themselves. The well-known case of Lord Byron 
affords an example in illustration. The wife of an English 
clergyman saw his lordship ‘at a place of public resort, 
and filled with admiration of his brilliant po~ers, was very 
deeply affected at the thought of their perversion. Not 
long after, she died ; and her husband, on looking over: 
her private papers after her decease, found among them a 
copy of a most simple and pathetic prayer in behalf of 
the noble poet, in which she entreated that he might be 
enlightened and guided from above, and learn to conse- 
crate his extraordinary gifts to God. The husband 


FOR THEIR OPINIONS. 4b 


enclosed this prayer in a letter to Byron, then at Pisa. 
For the moment it obviously touched his heart ; and his 
acknowledgment of it is at once one of the most beautiful 
and one of the most creditable things he ever wrote. He 
evidently felt the reality and the worth of such a piety as 
that exhibited by the interesting stranger who had in 
secret breathed out to Heaven for him so pure and fervent 
a supplication ; and he frankly confessed that the Chris- 
tian believer had reason to be of all men most blessed. 
To this confession, however, he adds immediately, “But 
a man’s creed does not depend upon himself. Who can 
say, I will believe this, that, or the other?” This is the 
ground on which he rested his defence of his unbelief and 
its practical consequences, as exhibited in his life. He 
persuaded himself that he had no responsibility for his 
opinions. It was no fault of his, he thought, that they 
were adverse to the Bible and its truths. He was merely 
passive in the matter. He could not change his views 
by an act of will. 

We cannot better represent a class than by this parti- 
cular example. We are almost daily hearing the same 
"apology for doubt or error urged,—we are not responsible 
for our opinions. We cannot help believing as we do. 
We must believe according to the evidence we have. 
This, too, is said with apparent sincerity and confidence, 
and as if it admitted no reply. My present purpose is to 
examine the validity of this apology. In order to do this, 
let us look into it a little, and see what it assumes. 

It is plain, in the first place, that those who assert that 
they are not responsible for their opinions, assume it to 


46 RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN 


be true that conviction in regard to religious truths must 
be compelled ; in other words, that the certainty of these 
truths must be carried to the mind by evidence that is 
literally irresistible, or else they cannot be believed. 
They take it for granted that the law of belief is as simple 
and invariable in its action as the law of gravitation. 
Attraction drives the body to the earth, without the 
smallest influence of any choice, or the least room for any 
responsibility on its part; evidence drives the mind to 
fixed conclusions by a like invincible necessity, and with 
the same absence of purpose or of will. Such is the view 
they take. 

But the truth of the matter is, that whatever of plausi- 
bility there may be in this assumption, arises from the 
confounding of things that differ. It is plain that those 
who make it, either designedly or through ignorance and 
want of discrimination, confound entirely the two widely 
diverse kinds of reasoning by which truth in general is 
established, each having its own appropriate and exclusive 
sphere, and being limited to a certain sort of truths. 
These two dissimilar kinds of reasoning, you will remem- 
ber, we endeavoured in the last discourse to distinguish 
clearly from each other. In taking it for granted that 
evidence in all cases must carry the conviction of the 
mind with the force of a felt necessity, the persons in 
question take it for granted, quite contrary to the fact, 
as we have seen, that all valid reasoning is demonstrative, 
and that no proof is conclusive except that which carries 
the mind, with certainty at every step, to a result which 
is absolutely necessary. It is indeed true, that in the 


FOR THEIR OPINIONS. 47 


reasonings of the mathematician, if the process be correctly 
carried forward, the steps are certain and the conclusion 
irresistible ; but this sort of reasoning, it was shown, is 
applicable only to the relations of numbers and of quan- 
tity, not at all to the truths of religion. To these last, as 
was explained, moral reasoning alone can rightly be 
applied, in which, although complete conviction may be 
reached, there is neither certainty in all the steps, nor 
necessity in the conclusion. Let but the nature and the 
laws of reasoning, therefore, just be clearly understood, 
and it is seen at once to be wholly false that conviction 
in relation to moral and religious truths must be compelled, 
in a literal sense, and without regard to the particular 
state of the mind itself. No religious inquirer has any 
right to ask or wait for a kind of proof which is incom- 
patible with the nature of the subject. Whoever does 
this clearly shows that he himself is either disingenuous 
and without an honest desire to learn, or else so careless 
as not to have considered what evidence he ought to look 
for. Lord Byron very well knew that he, and all men, 
daily formed conclusions the most positive and satisfying, 
and that where great interests were at stake, without 
anything like the evidence of demonstration—the evidence 
that must produce the same conviction or certainty in 
every mind, when rightly apprehended. He might have 
known, had he properly reflected, that all he had a right 
to ask was a sufficient amount of the same sort of evi- 
dence on which he acted in settling practical truth in the 
common affairs of life. He either imposed upon himself, 
therefore, or wished to impose on others by an insincere 


48 RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN 


and sophistical evasion. The same must be true of all, 
who attempt to stand upon the plea that belief can come 
only by irresistible necessity. 

The assertion that men are not responsible for their 
opinions assumes also, in the next place, that passion, 
prejudice, and personal inclination and desires, have no 
influence on the reasonings and judgments of the mind, 
or else, that there is no responsibility attached to the 
existence of these affections. 

But is it true that the mind cannot be biased in its in- 
quiries by its own passions, prejudices, and wishes? Will 
any one seriously maintain a proposition so utterly at war 
with every day’s experience and observation, when once it 
is distinctly stated? Take the case of the miser, for 
example. Why is it so difficult to convince him that it is 
more blessed to give than to receive? Is it that evidence 
is wanting of the essential meanness and the belittling 
effects of avarice? Or is it that he is blinded by a pas- 
sion that has gained full possession of his heart? You 
have anenemy. Bring him, if you can, to do full justice 
to your character and conduct, in those particulars in 
which all others acknowledge them to be worthy of com- 
mendation. What is the difficulty? His bitterness of 
heart, like stained glass that colours all the landscape, 
allows him. to see you only in false lights. It leads him 
to prejudge whatever you say or do, and to condemn with- 
out inquiry. Your child comes to ask of you some indul 
gence on which his heart is set. Your judgment and 
experience decide at once that it is not proper to allow it. 
Is it, then, easy to convince him? Will he weigh impar- 


FOR THEIR OPINIONS. 49 


tially your objections, with his own wishes on the other 
side, and pleading urgently against you? A villain is 
about to commit a robbery ora murder. There are a hun- 
dred chances against one that he will be detected and 
made to suffer punishment. How but through the delud- 
ing influence of his own desires and hopes, does he per- 
suade himself that the chances are greatly in favour of 
escape? So in a thousand cases that will readily occur. 
If there is anything in respect to men that is daily exem- 
plified and universally admitted in the ‘common affairs of 
life, it is this fact—that clear, convincing, ample evidence, 
on any subject, is likely to avail but little, when addressed 
to a mind whose prepossessions, feelings, and desires, are 
all against it. There is sure to be a bias, in such circum- 
stances, that is nearly or quite invincible. 

But since all this must be admitted, it will possibly be 
said, that for these states of their feelings and their wishes, 
men are not to be held responsible, whatever their practical 
influence may be. It may be urged that every man is 
what he is, by the laws of his being, and by the force of 
circumstances; and that the various biases which affect 
the action of the mind, are therefore to be regarded as 
inevitable—a misfortune and not a fault. 

Pray, what then has become of man’s voluntary nature ? 
Or in what sense is he an accountable creature and worthy 
of blame or praise? If a person’s ruling passions, his 
habitual dispositions and desires, are not essential ele- 
ments of moral character, in what does character essen- 
tially consist? If these do not depend for their existence 
either directly or indirectly upon his will, what is there 


50 RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN 


that does depend upon his will, except just the motion of 
his muscles? If men are not responsible for their pre- 
dominant passions, dispositions, and desires, then are they 
under the absolute control of a stern, unbending fate; and 
no more fit to be held accountable for what they do than 
automata that move and speak when the master pulls the 
wire. We can disown responsibility for those states and 
habits of feeling by which our opinions and conduct are 
determined, only by disowning the highest attributes of 
our nature, and casting away the true glory of our being. 

Besides, if it be indeed the truth, that men are not 
responsible for the existence of those states of mind which 
bias and pervert the judgment, it is a truth which ought 
to be admitted and acted on in all other matters, as well 
as in what concerns religion. Admit it, then, in cases like 
those to which we have referred. Admit that the miser 
cannot help being what he is, and deserves no censure; 
that your child is blameless when he quarrels with your 
judgment ; your enemy when he detracts from your well- 
known merits; and the robber and the murderer when they 
commit their deeds of darkness. In all these cases, it is 
in the states of mind previously existing, that the false 
judgments and the infatuation originate, which impel to 
the wrong action ; and plainly, if there be no responsibility 
for the first, there can be none whatever for the last. 
Such is the absurd result to which we come, if we affirm 
that men are not to be held responsible for their passions, 
prejudices, and wishes. It makes them blameless, how- 
ever bad may be their conduct. 

Ié cannot, therefore, save us from being justly held 


FOR THEIR OPINIONS. 51 


responsible for our opinions, that the force of evidence is 
impaired, or neutralized, by our own improper states of 
mind. Whoever brings to his religious inquiries any 
other than a humble, candid, willing mind—a mind that 
honestly desires to know the truth, and is ready to receive 
it though it should be painful in its nature—will be nearly 
sure to be lost in error, and must take to himself the 
blame of all the evil consequences he may suffer. 

In the third place, the assertion that men are not to be 
held responsible for their opinions, assumes yet further, 
that they have no duty to perform in searching after evi- 
dence, and carefully weighing it when found. If no evi- 
dence that is satisfactory presents itself, it is imagined 
there can, of course, be no obligation to believe. If there 
be a God, and he wishes that mankind should believe in 
his being and attributes, and in other kindred truths, it 
belongs to him, it is taken for granted, not merely to fur- 
nish the evidences of these things, but actually, by his 
immediate agency, to set them in order before men’s minds, 
and to cause them to be thoroughly known and under- 
stood. The whole care of producing belief in this view 
belongs to God. It is something to be wrought in them, 
without any toil or thought of theirs, as the sensation of 
warmth is produced by the solar rays, or by the presence 
of a fire. | 

But this view is wholly wrong. No one has any right 
to take for granted, that if God wishes him to believe 
particular truths relating to himself, or to his service, he 
will so set the evidence before his eyes that he cannot 


choose but see it. It is one of the high distinctions of 
4 


52 RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN 


our being that our intellectual powers are specially adapted 
to the purswit of truth. The very constitution of our 
nature thus indicates it as our duty to engage in this pur- 
suit; to apply our minds, actively and earnestly, to the 
work of investigation, as opportunity is offered. We need 
no power to search for truth, to explore the sources of 
proof, and push inquiry to its utmost limits, if our only 
business is to believe when we cannot help it—when we 
are actually overpowered with evidence collected for us by 
other agency than ours and pressed on our passive minds. 
Yet further, we may ask, How is it, as a matter of ex- 
perience, in the manifold concerns of life in which our 
interests are involved? In how many of all the cases in 
which we form opinions, is it true that we have nothing 
to do in collecting, arranging, and comparing evidence? 
How large a part of the care and labour involved in almost 
every important branch of business consists in doing these 
very things ? 

Suppose, for example, you should call upon a farmer, 
and find him quietly sitting in his house with folded hands 
in the midst of seed-time; and that, on asking the reason 
of his conduct, he should coolly tell you that he had no 
opinion formed as yet as to what kind of grain was best 
adapted to his soil ; but that he was waiting for proof to 
present itself and settle his uncertainty. Suppose you find 
a merchant suffering his vessel to lie rotting at the wharf, 
because not having done anything to ascertain the truth, 
he has come to no conclusion as to whether or not it will 
be best to despatch her on a voyage. You would surely 
think that men who, in such affairs, should take such 


FOR THEIR OPINIONS. 53 


ground, had either lost their senses, or that they were 
always fools. But how would the absurdity of such a 
course be greater than that exhibited by one who, when 
you ask him of his views in respect to God, religion, and 
immortality, replies with unconcern that he has no settled 
views about these things, and that he is quietly waiting 
till evidence shall come to him, and settle finally his 
doubts? What is there so peculiar in subjects of a reli- 
gious nature, that the common rules of action are not to 
be applied to them? That while the merchant, the far- 
mer, and the artizan must set themselves, with dili- 
gence and enterprise, to collect and arrange the means of 
settling their opinions, in their ordinary secular affairs, or 
be regarded as having lost their sanity; they may go on 
through life, doing nothing in good earnest to obtain the 
evidence that should give them certainty as regards their 
highest interests and duties,—those connected with veli- 
gion—and incur no such suspicion? There is no reason 
for any such distinction. The principle in each case, and 
of course the folly, is the same. In all the great concerns 
which involve our duty and our welfare,—in those of reli- 
gion not less, certainly, than others,—we are under impera- 
tive obligations to do our utmost to lay hold of, and 
thoroughly to understand the evidence on which correct 
opinions must be founded. We must do this, or remain 
in uncertainty, and quite probably endure the miseries 
that result from fatal error. 

Finally, when it is said that men are not responsible for 
their opinions, it is obviously assumed that they lack 
something, either light, or faculties, or opportunity, the 


54 RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN 


giving of which is necessary to render them responsible, 
If they want nothing which they now have not, to render 
them responsible, then certainly they are responsible. We 
need not stop to consider how far the responsibility of the 
degraded and benighted portions of mankind may be 
modified by their peculiar circumstances. We are speak- 
ing, in all this discussion, of civilized men who live sur- 
rounded with the means of culture and of knowledge. In 
all cases, and of course in relation to religious subjects, it 
is true that two things are necessary to the formation of 
an intelligent opinion, namely, a proper amount of evidence, 
and an amount of intellectual power which, if rightly 
used, is sufficient to understand it. If on any subject, I 
neither have, nor can have, any fit means of forming an 
opinion, then all will of course agree that no obligation to 
form one can possibly exist ; and so likewise, incompet- 
ency,—the want of understanding to appreciate the force 
of arguments,—must necessarily forbid the idea of any 
such obligation. The plea of incompetency is not likely 
to be urged. If men are competent to think, examine, 
and decide in regard to other things, they are competent 
to think, examine, and decide in regard to religious truth. 
The plea of want of evidence, if urged in relation to the 
essential truths pertaining to religion, is certainly not 
valid. It would seem, apart from facts, utterly incredible 
that no sufficient means of forming an opinion, either one 
way or the other, should exist, where the matter is so 
important; and then it is actually found that vast multi- 
tudes, and among them minds of the very highest order, 
do recognise the leading doctrines both of natural and re- 


FOR THEIR OPINIONS. 55 


vealed religion, as being sustained by .ample proofs— 
proofs which produce in them the most unwavering con- 
viction. Those too who have examined most thoroughly 
and with the greatest impartiality and candour, have borne 
the strongest testimony to the fulness and completeness 
of the testimony by which these primary doctrines are 
established ; while, on the contrary, those who allege a 
want of proper evidence, are generally those who have 
exhibited the least of either diligence or candour in their 
inquiries. That some, on the other hand, have decidedly 
rejected the essential truths of religion cannot certainly be 
urged as proof that no means of forming positive opinions, 
could be found. They have found evidence, they profess, 
against the truth of what are deemed to be the first truths 
of religion, and have settled their opinions on this basis. 
There is really no want of evidence, therefore, to those who 
will carefully and honestly inquire, even by the admission 
of such as have rejected all religious truths. Those who 
have received these truths, say they have found evidence 
sufficient in their favour ; those who reject -them—that 
they have found enough on the other side. According to 
both, there is no lack of the means of forming settled 
opinions, and nothing to justify a doubtful and unsettled 
State. Since, therefore, there is nothing wanting in order 
to make you, or me, or others about us responsible for our 
opinions, we must be held responsible for these, as truly 
as for our conduct. We have evidence within our reach ; 
and we may find and use it, if we will. There is nothing 
in the way of any of us, but an indisposition to apply 
ourselves, with a serious purpose and an honest mind ; 


56 RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN 


and this surely cannot relieve us from the obligation to 
find the truth and to embrace and hold it, 

It appears then, upon the whole, that the position that 
men are not responsible for their opinions as regards the 
main truths of religion, will not stand the test of a fair 
examination. It is based on assumptions that are false, 
It overlooks the difference between demonstrative and 
moral reasoning ; the influence of the moral state of the 
mind upon its judgments ; the need there is of care and 
pains in order to arrive at truth; and the fact that, at 
least those who are reared in the midst of Christian civil- 
ization, have both intellect and evidence enough, if they 
will rightly use them in the search for truth, to enable 
them to reach it. All this we have clearly seen. 

When, therefore, it is said that “a man’s creed does not 
depend upon himself,’—the reply is, that in the sense in 
which it is meant to be understood, the assertion is not 
true. It is plain that those who put in this plea are 
either self-deceived, or else willing to use this shield 
against what they know too well to be the shafts of truth, 
The means of knowledge being given, and the ability to 
examine and decide, it does depend on every man to de- 
termine whether he, as an individual, will know the truth 
or not. If, for want of due reflection, we ask for demon- 
stration where the nature of the case does not admit it, 
and refuse to believe without, we must take the blame of 
doing it. If we suffer our personal feelings and desires to 
warp and blind us, when we ought to be single minded, we 
must take the blame of doing it. If we are too indiffer- 
ent or too heedless to examine the proofs that actually 


FOR THEIR OPINIONS. BY 


exist and may be found by proper effort, we must take the 
blame of doing it. If we wait for something to be done 
for us, or something to be given us, to fill up the measure 
of our responsibility, when nothing really is wanting, we 
must take the blame of doing it. It would be just as 
near the truth to say that a man’s actions do not depend 
upon himself, as to affirm this of his opinions in respect 
to the more elementary religious truths. 

“But who can say”—it is asked—“TI will believe this, 
that, or the other?” Observe the sophistry involved in 
this inquiry—as though there could be no way of doing 
voluntarily, and in the use of our own powers, what can- 
not be done by a simple act of will! Suppose it were 
pressed on me as a duty to visit, for some good purpose, 
a distant place, and that I should answer, “ Who can say 
I will be in this, that, or the other place”—as if I sup- 
posed it meant that I should put myself there at once by 
simply willing it. You would justly pronounce it a mere 
quibble ; for no one would think of asking me to do any 
such thing as that. I cannot, indeed, transport myself to 
a distant place by an effort of my will; but J can use my 
powers and means to go, if Iam so disposed. J cannot 
‘vill myself directly into the belief of any truth; but I 
can rightly use my powers and means to come to a clear 
conviction of it. This makes me just as much responsible 
for my belief, as though I could will belzef, as directly as 
I will to lift my arm. So common sense does certainly 
decide. 

It is altogether in vain, then, that we endeavour to com- 
fort ourselves in a state of doubt or error, ‘with the per- 


58 RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN 


suasion that we are not responsible for our opinions. We 
are responsible! In matters of such moment as religion ; 
on questions of such magnitude as those relating to the 
existence and attributes of God, the immortality of the 
soul, and the reality of relation ; to the great rules of 
human duty, the way of being permanently happy, and 
the certainty of future retribution; there must be means 
of arriving at fixed conclusions—we cannot think it other- 
wise without doing violence to our own reason and the 
instincts of our own souls—and it must be a high abuse 
of our rational endowments, to neglect or to misuse these 
means. | 

If any of you say that you have not hitherto been able, 
and are not able now, to reach results that satisfy you, 
then you are bound to show beyond all doubt that the 
fault is not in you—that you have approached religious 
subjects as you ought, and without prejudice or bias, have 
done your utmost to come to fixed and just conclusions. 
Can you say this, O doubter, if there be one such in this 
assembly? Do you not rather feel in the depths of your 
secret soul, on the bare proposing of the question, that 
you have been most culpably neglectful and careless in the 
matter? Within yourself, then, lies the difficulty. Until 
with a truly childlike, open, earnest mind, you have tasked 
your highest powers and fatled, you cannot rid yourself of 
the vast responsibility of being firmly fixed in right reli- 
gious opinions. God, who has given you such power of 
thought, such inward light of reason, and such outward 
means of knowledge—who every day and hour is speaking 
to you, through all the beauty, and wisdom, and grandetr 


FOR THEIR OPINIONS. 59 


of the universe ; in the stupendous march of his eternal 
Providence ; in the monitions of conscience, and the deep 
instinctive yearning of your immortal nature ; and, as the 
wisest and the best of all mankind believe, in a positive re- 
velation, by which a glorious stream of light from. out the 
ineffable splendours of his throne, has fallen on your way, 
and a voice of infinite sweetness from the bosom of his 
love has spoken to your soul—this God, who knows you, 
and cares for you, and will sit at last to Judge your con- 
duct, according to all that he has done to elevate and bless 
you—must hold you, does hold you, will hold you in the 
day of his great award of retribution, responsible for your 
belief, or unbelief, in relation to his being and your duty 
as his creature. He bids you search for wisdom as for 
rubies, and promises divine illumination to all who 
humbly ask it. It is for yow then to determine, as 
you will answer for yourself to Him, whether you will 
know and love the truth and be the children of the light. 
—‘ Faith is the subtle chain 
That binds us to-the Infinite; the voice 


Of a deep life within that will remain 
Uniil we crowd it thence!” 


60 THH PRAOTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 


IV. 
Che Practical Value of Opinions, 


Proy. xxiii. 23: Buy the truth and sell it net. 


T is a saying of our blessed Lord himself, that the chil- 
dren of this world are wise in their generation. By 
this he meant that, in the common affairs of life, they ex- 
hibit shrewdness and discernment in consulting their own 
interests. If there be anything which they regard as 
valuable and believe to be within their reach, they spare 
no pains or effort in order to obtain it ; and when once 
they have satisfied themselves that any particnlar posses- 
sion will be of permanent advantage, they are ready to 
buy it at any price, and when bought, they steadily refuse 
to part with it again. This is sound worldly wisdom ; 
sound wisdom, that is, in regard to worldly things. 
Precisely the same course the wisest of men enjoins in 
relation to the acquiring and the retaining of the truth— 
of all truth, but more especially that which directly per- 
tains to the highest and most enduring welfare of mankind. 
Truth of this sort is of inestimable value. It is a pearl 
of great price ; more precious than rubies ; and he is the 
happiest of men who buys, never to sell it again, although 
he part with all he has to make the purchase, ‘This, on 
the bare statement, would seem to be too obvious to be 
insisted on in the way of argument. One would as soon 


THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 61 


expect to hear the worth of gold and diamonds disputed, 
as to hear any question raised as to the worth of religious 
truth. 

But there is hardly anything so plain in respect to 
human duty, that a wrong state of moral feeling may not 
cause it to be doubted, or even to be denied ; and strange 
as it may seem, it is an everyday occurrence to hear the 
value of truth itself disputed. It is common to hear those 
who are drifting about in loose uncertainty, gravely 
advance the sentiment that religious opinions, convictions, 
as to what is true and real in matters of religion, are of 
but very little consequence ; and having in the last dis- 
course shown the futility of the plea that men are not re- 
sponsible for their opinions, we will now examine the 
kindred allegation that opinions are of no practical import- 
ance. It is usually stated thus: “It is no matter what 
aman believes, if his life is only right.” The assertion 
sounds as familiar, and even trite, as though it were one 
of the plainest imaginable truths ; and yet it will appear 
on examination to be one of the most glaring and self- 
evident of falsehoods. It will be seen to be very much as if 
it should be said, “It is no matter whether a man have 
eyes or not, provided only that he can see!” To act 
right without knowledge is hardly less a practicable thing, 
than to see without the proper organs. 

For consider what is necessary to be done in order to 
prove the position true that it is no matter what a man 
believes on religious subjects if his life be right. It must 
be shown either, first, that there ave no certain truths per- 
taining to religion; or else, secondly, that these truths 


62 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 


have no necessary connection with the conduct of men ; 
or else, thirdly, that the consequences of their conduct, 
whether right or wrong, will be the same. 

We ask, then, in the first place, how it can be shown 
that there are, in religion, no fixed, unchangeable facts ; 
that there is no nature and constitution of things which 
exists as positive reality? In physical science—the 
science of material nature—it is acknowledged that there 
are facts, truths, laws; and is it to be believed, is it in any 
way capable of proof, that in the universe of mind and the 
sphere of moral sclence, there are no such things—no 
realities, or at least none that can be known? Pray, let 
us have the proof, you who take this remarkable position. 
It will be very singular indeed, should you be able to 
make out, that while there are indisputable certainties in 
all other departments of our knowledge, there are none in 
that which includes the spiritual nature and relations of 
our being, and our best and highest, because our eternal, 
interests. Let us look at the matter a little in detail, in 
order that what we mean may be clearly understood. 

We will draw an illustration from commerce. You 
have great interests, we will suppose, involved in this. 
You freight your ships for distant places and dispatch 
them, calculating, under certain conditions, on such and 
such results. In this affair there are, you very well 
know, certain fixed and unalterable facts, or truths— 
things which can be known definitely and fully. As to 
the sea, for example, it is a fact that it has a determinate 
shape and size; that it has its ebb and flow of tides; that 
it has its Gulf Stream, and other well-known currents ; 


THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 63 


that rocks and shoals’ are hidden in its bosom ; and that 
its condition is variously affected by the action of storm 
and wind. As to the winds themselves it is a fact that 
in some regions they are variable, in others constant in 
their direction; that at some seasons and in some places, 
they are sure to be tempestuous, and in others certain to 
be calm ; that at one time the land breeze may be counted 
on, and at another the opposite; and lastly, that the rise 
or fall of the barometer betoken® particular changes of 
the weather. As to the ship, in any given case, she is 
’ known to have a certain capacity, or to be of a certain 
burthen; her sails and rigging have a certain relation to 
her size; she requires, with a given freight, a certain 
depth of water; with a certain amount of pressure she 
will attain a particular speed; and a certain number of 
hands are required to man her. She carries a chart; it is 
the result of careful and accurate surveys. She has a 
compass ; it obeys a well-known law with certain slight 
variations that have been ascertained and noted. And so 
we might go on. 

Let it’ be observed, then, that in so ordinary a matter 
as the sending of a ship to a foreign port, all these, and 
many other things, are recognised as necessarily existing 
facts. They are involved in the very nature of the trans- 
action. They are the truths pertaining to the case; and 
should any one assert to you that in this commercial en- 
terprise there were no facts or truths involved, you 
would simply think him wanting in common sense. 

But here are multitudes of intelligent creatures who 
have entered on the great arena of existence. They mus 


64 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 


think, they must feel, they must act, they must perma- 
nently enjoy or suffer. They have a conscious capacity for 
religious responsibilities; a conscience which recognises 
the difference between right and wrong, and feels the 
obligation of the former ; and a sense of dependence and of 
restlessness within the heart, which seems to be the ex- 
pression of constitutional religious wants. As these 
beings could not have given themselves existence, they 
acknowledge a Creator. As they are frail and in many 
respects helpless, they naturally conceive themselves to be 
connected with him as objects of his care and providence. 
It seems a reasonable thought that they must owe him 
some important duties, that he must have had some ob- 
ject in giving them existence, and must, of course, have 
some choice as to what they shall be and do. It is diffi- 
cult. for them not to think that it must make some differ- 
ence in their feelings and condition, whether they act 
according to his design, or in opposition to it, and whether 
their religious cravings are satisfied or not. Therefore it 
would appear as though there are, of necessity, implied in 
the very existence and relations of these creatures certain 
definite and most essential facts, certain things which are 
true and real, and may be ascertained and known to be so. 

But you will have it that there are no realities in 
matters of religion; no facts, that is, which exist in the 
nature of things and which may be either revealed or laid 
open to observation. Then clearly it belongs to you to 
show, to prove beyond dispute and against the reason, and 
consciousness, and common sense of men, that there is no 
Creator, that man is not a dependent creature, that he has 


THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 65 


no spiritual nature, that his moral instincts and judgments 
are all alike illusive, that he has no moral obligations of 
any sort whatever, and that there is no difference between 
right and wrong. These appear to be the primary facts of 
religion just as the existence of the sun and planets, with 
their mutual relations and the law of gravitation, are the 
primary facts of astronomy. Disprove the existence of the 
sun, and planets, and gravitation, and astronomical science 
will be effectually demolished. Disprove the being of God 
and of the soul, their relations to each other, and the 
essential distinction between moral good and evil, and you 
will as effectually demolish all religion. You will hardly 
undertake to do so much so this. Nothing but sheer athe- 
ism, and that but very rarely, has attempted to go so far. 

Tt is plain that the very notion of religion supposes 
certain things to be true, as matters of fact and as being 
necessarily recognised as true and‘real, unless religion it- 
self be abjured as a chimera. Man has a certain moral 
nature, he has certain moral relations, these give rise to 
certain duties, and his actions, considered as right or 
wrong, are connected with certain fixed results. These 
facts, as existing in the nature of things, are not changed 
by our misapprehensions and wrong beliefs about them 
when we wander into error. They are unalterable 
realities. There are such realities in the moral world not 
less than in the natural. 

We come, then, to the other side of the alternative. We 
ask, in the second place, how it can be shown that the 
actually existing facts, the real truths in regard to the 
religious interests and obligations of mankind, have ne 


66 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 


necessary connection with their moral conduct? This is 
what is taken for granted in the plea for unsettled, or 
wrong opinions, which we are now considering. When it 
is said that it is no matter what a man believes, if his life 
be only right, it is said, in effect, that a man’s belief has 
no determining influence on his conduct ; that his opinions, 
his views of truth, are one affair, and his actions quite 
another; for if opinions do influence the conduct, do even, 
as the rule at least, determine it, then it is not and can- 
not be true that it is immaterial what they are. 

Let us go back to our commercial illustration. Let us 
see how it would answer to assume in the supposed affair 
of dispatching a vessel to a foreign port, that it is no mat- 
ter what a man believes. Let us see whether there is not 
of necessity an inseparable connection between the opinions 
of the master of the vessel and his conduct—whether his 
_ views of facts can be radically wrong, and yet his course 
of conduct be all right. How is it, then? Your captain 
has a fixed belief as to the distance he has to run, as to 
the strength and direction of the currents, as to the posi- 
tion of banks and ledges, as to the laws which regulate 
the wind and weather, as to the capacities of his ship and 
the supplies which he requires, as to the correctness of 
his chart and the accuracy of his compass. He has cer- 
tain established opinions or convictions in respect to all 
these and many similar things. What think you, then— 
have his opinions, or have they not, an influence on his 
conduct? Do they, or do they not, affect his mode of 
planning and executing the voyage to be performed? 
Apply the adage—It is no matter what he believes, if his 


THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 67 


conduct be but right! Ah, yes! but let him believe the 
opposite of what is actually true. Let him honestly be- 
lieve that his proper course is east when really his port 
lies west ; let him entertain the opinion that the prevail- 
ing currents are setting southward, when in fact they are 
setting to the north; let him persuade himself that his 
ship is twice as strong as she is in truth, and that she 
draws but half the water that she actually does ; let him 
have confidence in an inaccurate chart, and adopt too little 
or too much as the variation of the needle. With these 
views, which are directly contrary to the facts, wild his 
conduct—can his conduct by any possibility be the same 
as if he believed in accordance with the facts? Will not 
his opinions determine his conduct in the case, and ot 
necessity make it wrong? Can any one suppose, without 
a sense of the absurdity of such a supposition, that his 
actions can be right as regards his voyage, while his 
opinions, his judgment as to essential facts, are altogether 
wrong. 

But in matters of religion, it may be said, the case is 
different. Pray be so kind as to tell us how, if you are 
able. The soul is certainly a thing which has a nature 
and qualities of its own, as truly asa ship. It is just as 
truly fitted for some purposes, and unfitted for others, by 
its very constitution. It is made capable of finding happi- 
ness in certain things, and not in others. In a certain 
course of action its faculties expand; it rises in the scale 
of being, and seems to exist for a noble end; in an oppo- 
site course it degenerates and grovels, and appears to live 


for no important purpose. It is competent to know God 
5 


68 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 


and to love and obey him; and when it does this it has 
peace within itself. When it fails to do this, it feels in- 
wardly dissatisfied and restless; and generally, in the 
doing of what is right it has a sense of pleasure, and in 
the doing of what is wrong a consciousness of pain. 
These are existing facts in respect to the human soul, con- 
sidered as having a moral nature and relations. Take 
any individual man, these facts are true of him; and we 
will suppose that he believes them fully. He believes 
that he has a responsible soul ; that it must find its happi- 
ness in a certain way, or not at all; that right and wrong 
are immutably distinct, the one connected necessarily with 
pleasure, and the cther as necessarily with pain; that 
God as his Creator, and as the infinitely Wise and Good, 
is entitled to his love and his obedience, and will reward 
or punish him, according as he renders these, or not. Is 
it conceivable that the belief of these should have no in- 
fluence on his conduct? Believing them with firm con- 
viction, will his course of living be just the same, as if 
he did not believe them? Is it just the same, so far 
as his actions are concerned, whether he believes that he 
has an immortal nature, or believes that he has none 2 
whether he thinks that the love and pursuit of what is 
pure and good will make him happy, or of what is corrupt 
and evil? whether he concludes that he is accountable 
to God and a subject of reward or punishment, or that he 
has no responsibility at all? whether he thinks that virtue 
and vice are moral opposites, or that there is nothing to 
choose between them? ‘This is what you say, however 
unconsciously, when you assert that it is no matter what 


THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 69 


a man believes, if his life be only right. You say that 
his opinions have no relation to his life. You say that in 
order to act according to the nature of his soul, it is no 
matter whether he believés that he has a soul! That in 
order to do right it is no matter whether he believes that 
there is any such thing as right! That in order to meet his 
responsibilities to God, it is no matter whether he believes 
that he is responsible at all, or even whether there be a God 
or not! A man’s-opinions and his life are wholly inde- 
pendent of each other. His opinions may be all wrong, 
all contrary to the actual facts, and his course of action 
none the less all right ! 

What, then, we would like to be informed, determines 
a man’s course of action ; what leads him to act as he does 
act, if his views of things do not? A thoughtful child 
can see that it is a man’s views of things, his opinions, 
what he believes, that mainly determines his character 
and conduct, and make his course of life just what it is. 
When appetite and inclination draw men away to evil, 
they do this mainly through their perverting influence on 
the judgment persuading them to accept the false as true 
—to believe wrong and then act wrong. To talk of a 
man’s believing wrong, as to essential truths or facts, and 
at the same time acting right, is to talk absurdly. It 
is of the highest moment that a man’s belief accord 
with the reality of things, because unless it does, he 
cannot act according to the reality of things; his life 
cannot be right. It may possibly be right in its outward 
seeming, but in its real spirit and aims, it will be wrong. 

But since it cannot be denied, with any show of reason, 


70 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 


that a man’s actions depend essentially on his opinions, 
and will be mainly determined by them, the third alter- 
native may be adopted. It may be said, it has been often 
said, that if one only thanks that he is acting right, it will 
make no difference in the end, the result to him will be 
just the same, whether he really acts right or not. If a 
man believe wrong, and act wrong in the whole moral 
ordering of his life, so he do this but sincerely, no serious 
harm will follow. In some way or other it will come out 
about «as well as if he had believed and done precisely 
what he ought. 

But what is this, when you examine it, but the palpably 
false assertion that actions have no natural and necessary 
consequences ? Actions are causes, whose effects follow 
with the certainty of inexorable law, according to the 
established moral order of the universe. It is a part of 
the nature of things, that believing right and acting right, 
each human being will certainly reap the rewards of his 
well doing; but that believing wrong and acting wrong, 
each must inevitably encounter the consequences of his 
error. It is this that gives its highest importance to a 
man’s religious belief. As that determines his character 
and conduct, so it must finally determine his destiny of 
happiness or woe. 

We have only to try the notion that the consequences 
of right and wrong action may be in the end the same, in 
any concern of common life to see how absurd it is. Re- 
fer again, if you please, to commerce. If ever so sincerely, 
your captain believes that Cuba lies in the Mediterranean 
sea or in the Indian Ocean, will he therefore find it there? 


THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 710 


If he sincerely thinks that there are five fathoms of water 
on a bar, when in fact there is but one, will that prevent 
the striking of his vessel? Or if it is his opinion that 
his cable is sound and strong when really it is rotten, will 
that prevent him, when the tempest rages, from being 
swept from his moorings and dashed a wreck upon the 
rocks? If he does not regard the facts as they actually 
exist, there is nothing that can prevent the consequences 
of his ignorance. ‘The case is in no wise different in the 
matter of religion. In this, as in other things, facts are 
facts whatever we may think about them. If sin by the 
nature of things does lead to misery, and a man ever So 
sincerely believes that it leads to happiness, it will lead 
to misery still. If a man build his house—the edifice of 
his immortal hopes—on the shifting sand, persuading 
himself that he builds on solid rock, it will none the 
less for his sincerity in error, fall with a terrible destruc- 
tion, when the rain descends, and the winds blow, and the 
floods come. If a man convince himself that he can live 
without God and be happy, while it is true that God alone 
can meet his spiritual wants, he will yet be sure to feel at 
last the anguish of an empty and wretched heart. Such 
is the nature of things, and such it will be, whatever one 
believes. Is it, then, no matter what a man believes? Is 
it just as safe and just as well at last, to be in error as te 
understand the truth—to act against the laws of our own 
nature and of the moral universe, as to act in accordance 
with them? If so, the more complete the blindness and 
delusion in which men sink and keep themselves the 
better; for they escape by this means all anxiety about 


72 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 


the truth, and in the end come off as well. A conclusion 
so abhorrent to reason and right thinking, who can be 
willing to admit? 

The result, then, to which we are brought is this : that 
it is not to be expected that the conduct, the lives of men, 
will be:materially better than their opinions. Of course, 
in all that we have said, we have intended to refer, not to 
the opinions men profess, but to the actual living convic- 
tions of their minds. These, we have seen, do stand in 
direct and determining relation to their actions; and their 
actions to certain natural and necessary consequences, so 
that it may be said, with little qualification, that a man’s 
religious opinions, his real views of religious truth, do in 
fact decide his character and fix his destiny, as a moral 
and accountable being; that as these are true or false, the 
man, in any case, will be good or bad in his moral conduct, 
and happy or miserable in his ultimate condition. 

It is plainly, therefore, an imperative duty to set a high 
value upon truth in our religious thinking. Of what 
vast importance it is seen to be, that your religious opin- 
ions should not only be firmly fixed, but that they should 
also be rzght opinions !—As it is indispensable to the wel- 
fare of the body that you have right opinions as to what 
is wholesome food and what is poison, what exercise and 
regimen are salutary and what sure to prove pernicious, 
even so, you perceive, it is in relation tothe soul. Acting 
on the false and dangerous maxim that it is no matter 
what a man believes, you are every moment liable to em- 
brace such errors as will, by their practical influence and 
effects, poison the fountains of your immortal happiness 


THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPLNIONS. 73 


and prostrate the health and vigour of your immortal 
powers. If on the great voyage of existence you trust a 
lying chart, a deceitful compass and a treacherous pilot, 
nothing can save you from the woes of fatal wreck. 
Wrong ways lead infallibly to ruin, whatever they may 
think that travel in them. Right ways lead infallibly to 
safety, whatever they may think that turn their backs 
upon them. Be sure, my fellow-mortal,—since your 
duty and your personal well-being alike demand it of 
you,—be sure that in forming your religious opinions you 
dig deep and build on the rock of eternal truth. 

But perhaps the thought, or at least the feeling, arises 
in your mind, that it is too much trouble to ascertain the 
truth. You have done nothing hitherto, in serious earnest, 
towards learning what it is, because there is so much to 
be done. Strange apathy and inconsistency, where so 
much is at stake! The artizan cannot rest till he learns 
all the important facts about his art. The merchant 
never faints in his efforts to find out all the principles and 
laws of trade. The farmer perseveres till he has informed 
himself on all important points about his farm. But in 
respect to God and immortality—to the nature, relations, 
and destiny of the ever-living soul within you, you are 
content to be in ignorance, and to think nothing on the 
subject, or only in the way ofidle speculation! In this way 
some of you may have lived for many years. God has 
given you ample means, instructions, books, and wise re- 
ligious counsellors, yet here you are, in the same condition 
still, all uncertainty and doubt, and, strangest of the whole, 
quite unconcerned about your state! 


74 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 


But, mtie the meanwhile—I beg you to consider it— 
has not been standing still. It has been silently sweeping 
on with a mighty current towards the shadows of the un- 
seen world, and bearing you forward on its bosom. Yet 
a little longer, and even for you who are in the strength 
of your early years, eternity will open with the expanse 
of its everlasting ages. It will find you as you are, the 
children of darkness and not of light, unless you bestir 
yourselves right soon; and oh! rely upon it, you will 
find at last, that there are real facts pertaining to your 
soul, and to its duties and destinies for ever, which it was 
of infinite importance for you to have known betimes. 
You will see clearly then that the difference between re- 
ligious truth and error, was as wide as that between eter- 
nal life-and death—between heaven itself and hell. See 
to it, I pray you, that you have not then to look back, 
vith the anguish of a bitter self-reproach, on neglected 
opportunities, and an unprofitable and wasted life. 

Ah—the truth !—the truth in relation to ourselves, our 
duty, our happiness, as the rational creatures of God—it 
is indeed the richest of all gems! Buy it, you who are 
young—buy it all of you, at any price, and never let it 
go. Error will sooner or later perish ; and they who trust 
in it will perish with it, But Trot shali change and 
pass away, only when God himself shail die! 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 76 


V. 
Belicl uv the Remg of God. 
Ps. xiv. 1: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. 


BELIEF in God, as a self-existent, intelligent, and 
infinitely perfect Being, is the basis of all religion. 
Law, supposes a lawgiver; accountability, a governor and 
judge; and worship, a real object of affection and devo- 
tion. If there were no God, there would be, to the human 
race, no right and wrong, no feeling of moral obligation, 
no virtue, no vice, no piety ; nothing to constitute a moral 
nature, or to call forth moral action. The sole impulses 
which could operate to move men, on such a supposition, 
would be instinct, and expediency considered in reference 
to self-interest. , 

It is not, however, enough, that we admit the divine 
existence. It is highly desirable, not only to entertain a 
firm conviction that God exists, but also clearly to un- 
derstand, if possible, in what manner, or through what 
means, we come by this conviction. On this point there 
has been much discussion, ana widely ditferent views, 
among the philosophers and thinking men fo every ave. 
Some have maintained the idea of God to be innate; as 
Cicero for example, who says: * Omnibus enim innatum 


* De Natura Deorum, b. ii., cap. xii, 


76 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


est, et in animo quasi insculptum—that it is inborn in all 
men, and as it were engraven on the mind. Others have 
asserted the divine existence to be an intuition—an im- 
mediate perception of the reason, independently of any 
suggestion, argument, or evidence. By others again, it 
has been attempted to establish it by the rigid steps of 
mathematical demonstration. Nearly all agree that the 
constitution and the course of nature suggest an infinite 
intelligence; and it has also been insisted, more especially 
by Kant and those who have followed him, that the moral 
nature of man—his conscience and sense of moral obliga- 
tion—affords conclusive proof of the being and moral 
government of God. 

That a belief of the divine existence is innate, in the 
proper sense, the soundest philosophy forbids us to 
believe. That the truth that there is a God is strictly 
and purely an intuition, does not by any means appear. 
It is likewise pretty generally conceded that the proposi- 
tion does not fall within the province of mathematical rea- 
soning, and that the so-called demonstrations of it have 
in fact been failures. We believe the true statement of 
the matter to be this: That the human mind is constetu- 
tionally fitted to know God,—so that the notion of him, 
and a persuasion of his existence, necessarily arise within 
the soul whenever the faculties are in any good degree 
developed ; and that in its own moral consciousness, and in 
a great variety of facts and phenomena external to itself, 
it finds, on reflection, proofs that he does exist,—proofs 
of a moral nature, yet sufficient to establish the fact as an 
absolute certainty, in the view of the understanding. 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 77 


Such being the facts in relation to this great question. 
it is plain that the force of the evidence of the divine ex- 
istence does not depend on-any single proof or mode of 
argument considered by itself, but, as in other cases of 
moral or probable reasoning, on the entire impression 
which all proofs that can be gathered from all sources, are 
adapted to produce when taken in combination. Our 
proper method is, to avail ourselves of every fact and 
every circumstance which has the least significance; to 
seize on the slightest intimations of a Deity, as well as on 
the most palpable and convincing attestations of his 
being; and in this way to accumulate our evidence till it 
rises before us like one vast mountain, commanding in its 
aspect, and for ever immovable on its firm foundations. 

In accordance with this view, it is proposed in this dis- 
course to call your attention to certain generally admitted 
facts, which cannot but have great weight, if seriously and 
candidly considered, as they bear, especially when taken 
together, on the question of the divine existence. 

First of all, it is a well-known fact, that the idea of God 
and of spiritual existence is, and has always been, nearly 
or quite universal among mankind. 

Among all nations which have attained to any good 
degree of civilization, the idea of God, or of gods, one of 
whom was above the rest, has been perfectly familiar. 
The most barbarous and degraded even, who in some in- 
stances have seemed, on a slight acquaintance with them, to 
have no such conception, have been found, on further ex- 
amination, to entertain it. Along with the idea of God has 
been found also that of a spiritual world, and of spiritual 


78 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


existence and agency, in a variety of forms. Hence the 
mythologies, some of them highly poetical and beauti- 
ful, which grew up under the polished culture of the 
Greeks and Romans, and the more grotesque and fanciful 
systems of Oriental nations. It is, doubtless, true that 
among the less enlightened portions of mankind the notion 
of God has been extremely gross and every way defective. 
Forasmuch as they have not liked to retain God in their 
knowledge, they have become vain in their imaginations, 
and their foolish hearts have been darkened. But of this 
we have no occasion now to speak. It is the fact that this 
idea, in any degree of development whatever, should so 
universally prevail that claims our present notice, and re- 
quires an explanation. How shall it be accounted for in 
a way to satisfy the thoughtful mind? Whence comes it 
that the whole human race appear to be under a kind of 
constitutional necessity of forming and entertaining an idea 
to which there exists no object—no reality—to cor- 
respond? If there is a God, the infinite and intelligent 
Creator of all things, it is but natural, in the view of en- 
lightened reason, that man should be so made, and his cir- 
cumstances so arranged, that some notion of the Great 
Author and Preserver of his being should necessarily arise 
within his soul. But say that there is no God, and it ap- 
pears wholly unaccountable—a phenomenon without a 
cause—that such a conception, more or less imperfect as 
the case may be, should be found to spring up, as if by a 
moral instinct, in every human bosom. 

It is equally a matter of common observation that the 
more thoughtful, and especially the more virtuous men 


a a? 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 79 


are, the more, as the general rule, they are disposed to 
cherish the idea of a supreme Being. 

It will be admitted that the more the mind is addicted 
to serious reflection and inquiry after truth, and the more 
pure and virtuous it is in its tastes and dispositions, the 
nearer it approaches to its true normal state—that is, to 
the state of right and healthful action to which it is con- 
stitutionally adapted. Or to put the same thing differently, 
everybody will allow that just in proportion as men are 
intelligent and good they are likely to be free from per- 
verting influences, and clearly to perceive truth as it actu- 
ally is. It would not seem a strange thing that mind in 
an abnormal condition, disordered through ignorance and 
vice, should be led to entertain erroneous and unfounded 
notions; but if that which appears to be the truth to mind 
in its highest and best condition, and which is found 
universally to become the more certain to it, the more and 
the better it investigates, may after all be only an illusion, 
then there can be no such thing as positive truth, nothing 
of real unquestionable knowledge within the reach of man. 

When, therefore, we observe that to serious thinkers 
and the lovers of true virtue, in all ages and among all 
nations, the idea of God has been not only a familiar, but 
a favourite idea—that, generally, the conviction of the 
existence of an infinitely perfect Being has been clear and 
strong in proportion as the intelligence has been superior 
and the virtue unequivocal, we are plainly in this dilemma 
—that we must deny the certainty of human knowledge 
altogether, or else we must believe that there is substantial 
evidence that such a being does actually exist. Hither we 


80 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


are so constituted that in the best use of our highest 
faculties we are naturally led to believe and love a false- 
hood, or else there is, in the existence of a supreme Being, 
a personal God, an objective reality, corresponding to the 
idea which the enlightened mind is disposed to entertain, 
and to the belief in which it feels itself the more con- 
strained to rest, the more elevated and pure are its affec- 
tions, and the more liberal and profound its knowledge. 

It is also a fact not to be disputed, that a belief in the 
existence of a God has always been found exceedingly diffi- 
cult to be eradicated. 

Notwithstanding that, as already noticed, the notion of 
a supreme Being appears to arise naturally in the minds of 
all men who have any intellectual culture, there have still 
been professed atheists in every age. But in relation to 
these there are two things to be particularly observed. 
The first is, that it has always been apparent that they 
established themselves in the disbelief of the divine exist- 
ence, only after great, and usually long-continued, striving 
against an inward conviction of the probability, at least, of 
the being of a God. They have shown how strong was 
the tendency of their minds towards theism, by their 
eagerness to find out arguments against it, and by their 
readiness to lay hold of any that could be made to seem 
available, even though they were really sophistical and 
weak. They have, in general, very obviously found it 
difficult to keep their minds at rest in a state of disbelief 
to such a degree as to relieve them from the constant neces- 
sity of labouring to fortify themselves in their position. 

The other thing deserving notice in respect to those pro- 


| 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 81 


fessing atheism is, that when they had seemed to be con- 
firmed in the rejection of the doctrine of a God, it has 
often happened that the influence of some comparatively 
trifling circumstance or argument has been sufficient to 
neutralize entirely their unbelief almost in a single mo- 
ment; and the conviction that there must be, or certainly 
that there may be a deity after all, has come back upon 
their minds with overwhelming power. When they had 
pronounced the idea of God a mere chimera, and had 
imagined themselves for ever emancipated from the super- 
stition of admitting it, they have found that there still 
seemed to be a something, in the deep recesses of the 
soul, that would sometimes whisper the unwelcome 
thought with a startling distinctness, and make it seem, 
at least for the time, an unquestionable reality. I once 
found, in a meeting for religious inquiry, an intelligent 
young man whom I had never seen before. He seemed 
to feel intensely. Seating myself by his side, I asked in 
what state of mind he was. “O sir,” said he, “I do 
not know myself. I was an atheist a little while ago, or 
thought I was, but now it has all gonefromme. I feel— 
I know—now that there is a God!” Many such instances 
occur—sometimes under the influence of revivals of re- 
ligion, sometimes in the season of affliction, in the moment 
of danger, or in the hour of death. They are impressive 
illustrations of the difficulty with which a belief in the 
divine existence can be totally eradicated, when once de- 
veloped in the mind. They make it clear that the most 
confirmed atheist can never be quite sure that he will 
not find his unbelief forsaking him, just when he will 


82 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


want it most, and the unwelcome conviction which he had 
thought for ever banished returning on him with over- 
whelming force. 

How, then, shall we account for this? Some good 
reason certainly there must be, for this great difficulty, 
universally experienced, in attempting to rid the mind in 
which the idea of God has been developed of a conviction 
of his existence. The phenomenon cannot be accidental ; 
it exhibits too much of the constancy of established law. 
To what can we refer it but to a constitutional adaptation 
of the mind to receive the truth that there is a God, taken 
in connection with the objective certainty of the truth it- 
self. This plainly is the only satisfactory solution. There 
is no other which is even plausible. 

We may farther add, in the fourth place, that the 
atheistical hypothesis, or, in other words, the supposition 
that no God exists, when fully and distinctly placed before 
the mind, is abhorrent to the moral feelings of the soul. 

It is obvious that men may speak, and often do speak, 
of the non-existence of a Deity without any distinct 
notion of what this really involves; and it is because they 
speak inconsiderately and ignorantly that they are not con- 
scious of any strong repugnance to the admission of the 
thought. Or if, in the case of those who have utterly 
abandoned themselves to evil, and who, in the depth of 
their depravity, appear to wish there were no God, the 
hypothesis of atheism, when deliberately considered, does 
not awaken feelings of abhorrence; it is only because the 
non-existence of God is regarded as a less dreadful evil 
than the suffering of eternal punishment. If there were 


: 
: 
| 
. 
: 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 83 


no God, it would by no means follow either that the 
wicked would cease to be at death, or that if they should 
continue to exist they would be happy. But while they 
flatter themselves that such would be the consequence, 
this hope of impunity may in a measure reconcile them to 
the idea of a universe without a Deity. 

With some such partial, and perhaps only apparent ex- 
ceptions, it is certainly true, that the moral sentiments of 
the human soul do so earnestly demand a God, that the 
serious supposition that none exists, is one from which 
the heart shrinks, as dark and horrible in the last degree. 

A German writer, the celebrated Jean Paul Richter, 
illustrates this revulsion of the moral instincts of the soul 
from atheism, in a passage of such surpassing impressive- 
ness and power, that I am tempted to quote it, notwith- 
standing the strangeness of the style in which it is con- 
ceived and executed. It takes the form of a dream, and 
has a wildness which only a German imagination could 
have imparted to the treatment of such a subject ; but 
the entire impression which it makes is truthful and pro- 
found. It is as follows :— 

“JT was reclining one summer evening on the summit 
of a hill, and falling asleep there, I dreamed that I awoke 
in the middle of the night in a church-yard. The clock 
struck eleven. The tombs were all half open, and the 
iron gates of the church moved by an invisible hand, 
opened and shut again with a great noise. I saw shadows 
flitting along the walls, which were not cast by any bodily 
substance. Other livid spectres rose in the air, and 


children alone still reposed in their coffins. There was a 
6 


84 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


greyish, heavy stifling cloud in the sky, which was strained 
and compressed into long folds by a gigantic phantom. 
Above me I heard the distant fall of avalanches, and 
under my feet the first commotion of a mighty earthquake. 
The church shook, and the air was agitated by piercing 
and discordant sounds. 

“The pale lightning cast a mournful light. I felt my- 
self impelled by terror to seek shelter in the temple. 
Two splendid basilisks were placed before its formidable 
gates. 

“T advanced amid the crowd of unknown shades on 
whom the seal of ancient ages was imprinted. They all 
pressed around the despoiled altar; and their breasts only 
breathed and were agitated with violence. One corpse 
alone which had been lately buried in the church reposed 
on its winding sheet; there was yet no motion in its 
breast, and a pleasing dream gave a smile to its counten- 
ance; but at the approach of a living being it awoke, 
ceased to smile, and opened its heavy eyelids with a pain- 
ful effort. The socket of the eye was empty, and where 
the heart had been there was only a deep wound. It 
raised its hands and joined them to pray; but the arms 
lengthened, were detached from the body, and the clasped 
hands fell to the earth. 

“Tn the vaulted ceiling of the church was placed the 
dial of eternity. No figures or index were there, but a 
black hand went slowly round, and the dead endeavoured 
to read on it the lapse of time. 

“From the high places there then descended on the 
altar a figure beaming with light, noble, elevated, but who 


ee ee ee 


ee ee ee 


ee ee ee 


a nT ee a a Ce ee Se 


a a Oh oe 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 85 


bore the impression of never-ending sorrow. The dead 
cried out, ‘O Christ! is there then no God?’ He re- 
plied, ‘There is none. All the spectres then began to 
tremble violently, and Christ continued thus, ‘T have 
traversed worlds, I have raised myself above their suns, 
and there, also, there is noGod! I have descended to the 
lowest limits of the universe; I looked into the abyss, and 
I cried, O Father, where art thou?’ Yet I heard nothing 
but the rain that fell drop by drop into the abyss, and 
the everlasting and ungovernable tempest alone answered 
me. Then raising my regards to the vault of heaven, I 
saw only an empty orbit, dark and bottomless. Eternity 
reposed on chaos, and in gnawing it, slowly also devoured 
itself, Redouble, then, your piercing and bitter com- 
plaints. May shrill cries disperse your spirits, for all hope 
is over. : 

“The spectres of despair vanished, like the white vapour 
condensed by the frost. The church was soon deserted. 
But all at once—terrific sight—the dead children who 
were now awakened in their turn in the church-yard, ran 
and prostrated themselves before the majestic figure which 
was on the altar, saying to him, ‘Jesus, have we no 
Father?’ And he replied with a torrent of tears, ‘ We are 
all orphans! Neither I nor you have any Father! aks 
these words, the temple and the children were swallowed 
up, and all the edifice of the world sunk before me into 
the immensity of space.” 

Appalling as this picture is, of the anguish and despair 
which would overwhelm the spirits of men were it autho- 
titatively announced to them that the idea of God was a 


86 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


chimera, that the universe was without a head, and all 
beings without a Father—it is yet a picture by no means 
overdrawn. Let any one who is disposed to doubt on 
this point, make a deliberate and fair appeal to his own 
consciousness, and he will find how abhorrent to his whole 
moral nature is the conception of a universe without a 
Deity; the blind, dark, dismal reign of forces eternally 
conflicting, without unity and without intelligence, instead 
of the dominion of wisdom and of love embodied in a 
personal and infinitely perfect God. Why in all nature 
does the seed sprout upward, plant it as you will? Be- 
cause, by an inward law, it is determined to seek the 
genial influence of the sun. Even so the human soul has 
deep within itself a something—call it a yearning, or an 
instinct, or whatever else you choose—a sense of want 
profound and uneradicable—which, until it be utterly 
destroyed by sin, so causes it to feel the need of God, 
that even while it does not truly love him, it cannot en- 
dure the thought of his non-existence. 

What, then, shall be said by way of accounting for so 
remarkable a fact? Is there more than one solution which 
will at all commend itself to any serious, thinking mind? 
Does it not seem a gross absurdity to entertain the 
thought, that the rational soul of man is constitutionally 
disposed to search after, and to demand as an absolute 
necessity in order to its happiness, a living, personal 
Deity, ifno such being really exists? Can it be possibly 
conceived that atheism should be so abhorrent to the best 
feelings of the heart in man, so intolerable to think of, if the 
atheistical hypothesis be not a falsehood and an absurdity ? 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 87 


We refer, in the fifth place, to yet another fact which is 
of great significance. It is clearly proved by the ex- 
perience of all ages, that a belief in the existence of one 
supreme and perfect God is in a high degree elevating 
and happy in the influence which it exerts on the mind 
and heart of man; while the views of atheism have 
tended only to demoralization and debasement. 

It, doubtless, has sometimes been true that individuals 
have been found who have professed atheism, and yet 
have not materially departed outwardly from the observ- 
ances of virtue. But these have been chiefly such as have 
been born and educated where the institutions, and the 
whole spirit of society, were determined by a very general 
belief in the divine existence; and to this it has been 
owing, that the appropriate effects of their unbelief have 
not appeared. So obvious have been the pernicious ten- 
dencies of atheism, even where the prevalent ideas of God 
were exceedingly erroneous, that philosophers and states- 
men who studied to promote the well-being of society, 
have regarded the popular belief of polytheism, bringing 
along with it all the evils of idolatry, as safer far, and 
greatly less corrupting, than the atheistical denial of any 
power superior to man and nature. They dared not dis- 
turb the popular faith in divine existence and agency, cor- 
rupted and imperfect as it was, and even seemed to coun 
tenance it, although they had themselves attained to 
better views, because they saw that under the reign of 
aniversal atheism all the virtues that adorn humanity, 
and even society itself would perish. 

On the other hand, the fact lies on the very face of 


88 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


human history, that a settled belief in the being of a God, 
and of the truths which are obviously deducible from this, 
is not only favourable in its influence on human character 
and happiness, but favourable in a very high degree. The 
existence of a Deity admitted, the doctrines of a Provi- 
dence, of human responsibility, and of ultimate retribution, 
logically follow, and are, of course, admitted likewise ‘ 
and all these truths taken together, must, from the nature 
of the case, tend powerfully to develop the feeling of 
moral obligation in the soul, and to put restraint on all its 
propensities to evil. Such have been everywhere their 
manifest effects. If it is true, and it must certainly be 
admitted to be true, that in communities and states in 
which there has been a prevalent acknowledgment of the 
divine existence, there have been but too many exhibi- 
tions of popular depravity, it will also be found on in- 
quiry to be true that when corruption of manners has 
most obtained, faith in a Deity has been least real; and 
on the. contrary, it will appear that when faith in God 
has been most intelligent, most vital and prevailing, the 
evil impulses of men have been most restrained, and the 
flowers and the fruits of virtue have most richly bloomed 
and ripened throughout all the walks of life. Refer, for 
example, if you please, to Jewish history. There were 
periods in which their belief in the one true God was 
general, deep, and earnest. Those were the bright and 
glorious periods of their national existence. There were 
days in which they lost the freshness and the vigour of their 
faith in the great Jehovah, and even lapsed into actual 
idolatry ; and those were the days in which both public 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 89 


and private virtue disappeared, and there was seen every- 
where the sad and abhorrent picture of individual baseness, 
and of social rottenness and misery; and even at the 
worst, their moral condition was far better than that of 
the nations immediately around them, among whom there 
was no faith in the one true God at all. It is impossible 
to read the glowing passages of David and Tsaiah, in 
which they delineate with such surpassing power and 
beauty the character and attributes of the Most High, 
without believing that the grand idea of divine perfection 
which was ever present to their minds,—the noble con- 
ception of a personal self-existent God, infinite in power 
and wisdom, in holiness and majesty,—did operate most 
powerfully to elevate, expand, and purify their souls. So 
far as the mass of the nation were able to receive and 
entertain such views, and were believingly familiar with 
them, the same effects must have been wrought on them. 

Here, then, as before, we ask, What explanation shall 
be given? With the indisputable fact before us, that a 
belief in a living personal God has proved itself in every 
age and nation most salutary in its influence on human 
character; that its tendency has clearly been to develop 
intellectual and moral life and energy, and to invest 
humanity with the charms of moral loveliness, are we to 
think—can we imagine—that this belief is without the 
least foundation—a fond but idle fancy—an empty, vain 
delusion? Who has credulity enough for this? Who 
can persuade himself that this grand moral force which 
has been seen exerting itself on the minds and hearts of 
men from the creation until now, is after all a mere non: 


90 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


entity—a fiction of the mind itself? This striking fact, 
that the influence of a belief in the divine existence has 
always been so eminently happy and ennobling, must 
make the supposition that this belief is false, seem utterly 
absurd to the candid, thoughtful mind. 

You will observe, that in calling your attention to the 
several important facts to which we have referred, it has 
not been asserted that any one of them, or even all of 
them together, do constitute an absolute and perfect 
demonstration of a God. On the contrary, we have said 
that such a thing is not to be expected. But what we say 
is this. The human mind, whenever and wherever de- 
veloped into intelligent consciousness, appears naturally 
and necessarily to have the notion of a God. The more 
reflective, and especially the more virtuous men have been 
in every age, the more as the general rule they have loved 
and cherished this idea. Those who, for any reason, have 
sought to rid themselves of all belief in God, have found 
the task extremely difficult—almost impossible. The con- 
ception of a universe without a God is, when deliberately 
considered, naturally abhorrent to the soul. And, finally, 
the belief in a self-conscious, intelligent, personal Deity, 
has always been seen to exert the best influence on human 
character and happiness. Each one of these facts, con- 
sidered by itself, is wholly unaccountable except on the 
supposition that God actually exists. Each one of them 
impresses the serious, honest mind with a conviction of 
his being; and then, when we take them all together— 
with no conflicting proof to neutralize their force—they 
carry that conviction to a moral certainty, which sound 


ea 


BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 91 


philosophy, and the laws of reasoning on such subjects, 
decide to be not at all less satisfactory and conclusive, 
than that of the most rigid demonstration. Such is the 
method, and such the result of the present argument. It 
is only one of several modes in which we may consider this 
great subject. We may take other stand-points, and have 
recourse to other kinds of proof ; and so, as we observed 
in the beginning, we may confirm our moral instincts by 
substantial arguments adduced in indefinite accumulation. 

Let us also understand that the study of this subject 
is not unprofitable speculation. Farfromit. Scepticism, 
so often repulsed in its grosser attacks on divine religion, has 
in this, our time, assumed a more refined and subtle form. 
The philosophical pantheism of the schools of Germany 
and of the most recent sceptical writers of England and 
America, is a practical if not a real atheism. If God be 
not a living, personal, self-conscious being, existing apart 
from the creation, but only an unconscious necessary cause 
or force evolving itself in the universe of things and always 
immanent in it, the name may be retained, but the thing 
is gone for ever. Such a necessary cause, or force, or 
ground of being—call it what you will—is no more God 
in any proper sense than was the eternal fate of the Greek 
mythology. The advocates of the modern pantheistic 
views do as completely empty the universe of God, accord- 
ing to any true notion of his being, as it is possible to do; 
and leave an awful vacancy as horrible to the conception 
of a healthful, sober mind, as it was represented in the 
passage quoted from Jean Paul a little while ago. 

Yet these are the views which in.so many captivating 


92 BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 


forms, in books and lectures, in poetry and prose, are now 
addressed to the better class of minds among the young 
people of our land. Their vagueness takes the imagination, 
Their pretension excites the hope of augmented light. 
But, believe it, they do but mock with empty names, and 
with bewildering shadows; and bring, instead of increased 
Ulumination, the murky gloom of unalleviated darkness— 
‘‘ Black as deep midnight, terrible as hell!” 

From all such exhibitions turn to the facts affirmed by 
human consciousness and human history, to which we 
have referred, and let them make their mighty plea for 
God—the real God—within your souls. It is clear, with 
such facts before you, that your souls are made to conceive 
of God ; that they deeply yearn for God ; that they cleave 
to a belief in God ; that they shrink from the orphanage to 
which his non-existence would consign them ; and finally, 
that they feel themselves drawn upward in the scale of 
being by the glorious attraction of his infinite perfection. 
You must then recognise the living God. You cannot do 
without him. The planets in the heavens, which are held 
ever in their places by the attraction of the central orb, 
and have all their life and gladness in his beams, shall as 
soon be able to do without the sun, as you shall be 
able to do without the centre of all minds, the re- 
splendent light of all the universe, the fountain of those 
influences and those attractions, which produce and per- 
petuate throughout the whole, order, harmony, and blessed- 
ness. There isa God. It is only the fool that denies it 
in his heart, 


ARGUMENT FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 93 


VI. 


Argument from Design for the Dibme 
Existence. 


Rom. i. 20: For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the 
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, 
even his eternal power and Godhead. 


N a former discourse we have endeavoured to present 
the evidence of the divine existence which is furnished 
by the moral constitution, instincts, and history of man, 
as exhibited in certain familiar and generally admitted 
facts. It was then observed that that was only one of 
many lines of argument which might properly be pursued, 
for the purpose of advancing the instiuctive belief in the 
being of a God which men seem naturally to entertain, to 
a full conviction of the understanding—a rational faith, 
logically established by conclusive proofs. 

The text invites us to take another position and to pur- 
sue another course of thought on this deeply interesting 
subject. In order to render its exact meaning a little 
more easy to be apprehended, we may paraphrase this 
remarkable passage in the following manner :—For his 
invisible attributes, even his eternal power and divinity, 
are clearly seen since the creation of the world, being ren- 
dered intelligible by the things that are made. I propose, 
in this discourse, to direct your thoughts to the truth 


94 ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 


which it clearly states,—that the constitution and the 
phenomena of the system of nature afford decisive evidence 
of the ewistence of a God. 

The argument constructed on this basis is what is com- 
monly called the argument from design. Kant and his 
followers among the Germans, and Coleridge and those 
who adopt his views among English and American writers 


on the subject, have denied the validity of this argument ; . 


or rather they have denied that it amounts to a strict and 
absolute demonstration—a thing which ought never to 
have been claimed in its behalf. It is an argument of 
the moral or probable kind; and as such, when correctly 
stated, it is not only valid and worthy of attention, but is 
in fact one of the most striking and irresistible that can 
be presented to the mind. The mind being, as we have 
seen, instinctively disposed to find a God, the constitution 
and aspects of nature attentively and candidly considered, 
afford it proofs of his existence, which though not 
mathematically demonstrative in their nature, are yet, if 
allowed their fair impression, not at all inferior, in their 
power to produce conviction, to the severest demonstra- 
tion. 

The argument, in short, is this. The system of nature 
exhibits innumerable instances of the adaptation of means 
to ends and of particular and general design. We are 
certain that this system had a beginning. To originate 
it, there must have been a contriver and architect ade- 
quate to the production of such a universe; and although 
as the universe is not infinite, an infinite designer is not 
mathemiatically proved, yet as the mind is constituted, it 


FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 95 


cannot conceive of a being capable of producing such a 
universe, without feeling it absurd to set any limits to his 
power, and wisdom, and other manifested attributes ; 
without, in a word, ascribing to Him the attributes which 
constitute a personal God of infinite perfection. We are 
not to consider what would be the force of this evidence 
apart from the peculiar laws of our moral nature; but 
what is its legitimate and actual force as addressed to such 
a nature. Considered in its relation to our minds, par- 
ticularly to our moral instincts, the proof of a God derived 
from the appearances of nature is certainly clear and satis- 
factory. That this may appear, we will more fully illus- 
trate and amplify the argument as just stated in a brief 
and simple way. 

Suppose, then, that in travelling through a country in 
which you are a stranger, you arrive at a splendid palace. 
You observe, as you approach it, that the noble park in 
which it is embosomed, is carefully enclosed, that it is 
adorned with a variety of trees, many of them obviously 
transplanted from foreign climes, and that herds of deer 
are grazing on its slopes. Its gardens, you notice, are 
planned in exact accordance with the rules of correct per- 
spective, and are supplied with every plant and shrub 
recommended either by utility or beauty, and with the 
choicest fruits of all the several seasons. The edifice itself 
strikes you at once as a model of architectural symmetry 
and proportion, and as in all respects exceedingly well- 
planned. On its top is an observatory, furnished with a 
telescope ingeniously arranged, and commanding the most 
delightful views in all directions. As you ascend the 


96 ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 


marble steps, which are hewn and laid with mathematical 
exactness, and the door balanced nicely on its hinges, opens 
at your touch, you perceive that throughout the whole esta- 
blishment there is perfect order, combined with admirable 
taste and art. The hall is large and airy, and enriched 
with the master-pieces of the painter and the sculptor; 
the drawing-rooms are lofty and well-proportioned, while 
the brilliant chandelier dependent from the ceiling and 
the massive lamps upon the mantel, furnish complete 
facilities for the most agreeable illumination. You find 
also in their proper places the useful chair, the comfortable 
sofa, and the luxurious couch with its downy pillow. In 
short, after examining every part attentively, you can dis- 
cover nothing wanting which could contribute to the com- 
fort or the pleasure of the occupant. 

After having satisfied your curiosity and admired suffi- 
ciently the wisdom which contrived and the skill which 
executed so fine a plan, you resume your journey anxious 
to be informed who has fitted up for himself this magnifi- 
cent abode. Soon you meet a resident of the neighbour- 
hood, and ask him to inform you. With an air of surprise 
at your inquiry he replies, “That palace was never built, 
as you suppose. It has always stood there precisely as 
it is.” You feel the entire absurdity of such an answer, 
and conclude that your informant is a fool, or else that 
he believes that you are one. You meet a second and 
repeat your question. He gravely tells you that your im- 
pressions respecting it are wholly wrong; that there is 
really no contrivance or design about it; that matter must 
exist under some form or other; and that among the 


i ea ne 


FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 97 


infinity of possible modifications it has happened to take 
the order and arrangement you have noticed. This 
answer you find even more repugnant to your reason than 
the former; and intent on coming at the truth, you ask a 
third. His statement is, that a man of princely means 
and tastes at a certain time selected the site of the palace, 
laid out and beautified the grounds, erected the noble edi- 
fice, procured the costly furniture, and spared no pains to 
make it a rich and convenient habitation, and that at par- 
_ ticular seasons of the year he is wont to occupy it and to 
enjoy the means of happiness which it affords. This 
answer accords with all that you have seen, and is a satis- 
factory solution of the case. 

Like such a palace is the natural world around you. 
Throughout its diversified and almost innumerable arrange- 
ments you see a design which evinces surprising wisdom 
and an execution indicative of boundless power. The 
globe itself is one of the members of a nicely adjusted 
system. For thousands of years it has moved through a 
path more than five hundred millions of miles in circuit, 
never wandering from its course. During the same period 
it has steadily revolved upon its axis, maintaining with 
undeviating regularity the alternations of day and night. 
Everywhere, on the surface of the earth, you find the 
animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms characterized by 
adaptations the most wonderful and perfect, and by a 
rigid conformity to law. There is a place and a use for 
everything, and everything is fitted to its place and ree. 
Modify at any point the existing order of things, and you 
are certain to introduce disorder and deformity. Exchange, 


98 ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 


for example, the teeth and claws of the lion for the 
grinders and cloven feet of the ox, and the one would in- 
evitably famish amid the mountains of prey, and the other 
though surrounded by the ample luxuriance of the pasture. 
Give to the eagle fins, and transfer his pinions to the 
shark, and each would perish hopelessly, unfitted for his 
proper element. For the grateful verdure of the grass 
and trees let there be substituted the bright yellow of the 
gold-cup or the pure white of the lily, or the dazzling 
scarlet of the geranium, and you might almost as well put 
out the sun, or at once doom all the world to blindness. 
Let the granite strata be transformed to diamond, and you 
could neither remove them from their places nor convert 
them to your use with any tolerable convenience. Let 
your springs of water lose their pure and grateful taste- 
lessness, and acquire instead a sweet or a spicy flavour, 
and your drink would shortly cloy your appetite and beget 
a loathing. In a word, suppose any material change you 
please in the constitution of the natural world and you 
will find that mischievous results would inevitably follow 
its occurrence. It is a perfect and harmonious whole, 
uniting, like the palace in the case supposed, both useful- 
ness and beauty, each in its due proportion. 

But the fact that there are indications in the system of 
nature of a general plan, an adjustment of the several 
parts to one another, is not all that it concerns us to ob- 
serve. Each natural object in itself, and aside from its 
relations to the whole, exhibits proof of wise contrivance 
and design. The vegetable and animal kingdoms perhaps: 
furnish the most striking instances of this. The botanist 


FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 99 


who examines the germinating and fructifying organs of 
plants, and the anatomist who explores the mysteries of 
the animal economy, find at every step of their investiga- 
tions adaptations which surprise by their ingenuity and 
astonish by their perfection. Many of these provisions, 
indeed, are obvious only to the scientific eye; yet very 
many also may be noticed by the most uninformed 
observer. Who, for instance, can have failed to mark 
how the seed of the thistle is scattered over the face of the 
earth by means of its balloon of down? Who has not 
noticed how the reed, the corn-stalk, and the tall spire of 
grass, could not have stood erect but for the singular de- 
vice of joints formed at certain intervals, which add 
greatly to their strength? To whom has it not occurred 
that to invert the position of the ear would be almost to 
destroy its value? Who has not often admired the posi- 
tion’and the structure of that most perfect of all tele- 
scopes—the eye? Defended by the nasal, cheek, and 
frontal bones, and veiled by its elastic curtain, delicate as 
it is, it is probably more rarely injured than any other 
organ; while with its complicated lenses, its dilating and 
contracting pupil, and its self-regulating power, it is a 
specimen of unrivalled mechanism. We might go on to 
mention the heart, with its cells, and valves, and spon- 
taneous motion—the lungs, with their delicate and elastic 
structure—and the limbs, with their muscles, tendons, 
ligaments, and joints. But it is not my design to pursue 
this part of the subject into minute detail. 

Now to the question that forces itself upon every 
thoughtful mind—whence this obvious general design, 


land 


¢ 


100 ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 


and these wonderful special adaptations, one of three 
answers must be given—namely, Hither things have 
always existed as they are; or they exist in their pre- 
sent state by accident; or they are the work of an intelli- 
gent Author. 

The first of these answers—that the world has always 
existed as it is—corresponds, you perceive, with the reply 
of the person whom we supposed to say that the palace so 
complete and well-arranged was never built, but had 
always presented the appearance described ; and the false- 
hood of the one is not less palpable than that of the other. 
There is, on the first mention of the thing, the same sort 
of difficulty in conceiving of such a world without a 
planner as such an edifice without an architect; and then, 
further, whatever may or may not be true about the 
eternity of matter, we positively know—for science, par- 
ticularly the science of geology, affords most ample proof 
of the fact—that the present system of things upon our 
earth is not eternal. It has not always existed as it is, 
but has had a comparatively recent origin. The several 
stages or gradations by which it has reached its present 
state are written for our study on the successive strata of 
the rocks. With the testimony of the sciences all the 
existing records of human history agree. While the re- 
mains of perished genera and species, both of animals 
and plants, declare that neither of these departments of 
nature has been always as it is, there are abundant facts 
to prove that the human race have not always existed on 
the earth. 

Lomit on this point some abstract modes of reasoning, 


FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 101 


which have commonly been employed, as rendered un- 
necessary by the facts to which wé have just referred. 

The second answer, which corresponds with the reply 
supposed in our illustration—that the palace was pro- 
duced fortuitously as one possible form of matter— 
assumes that matter has inherent in it some blind force— 
some tendency to organized arrangement, by virtue of 
which, in the course of ages, it has assumed the forms in 
which we see it. On this we may remark that the 
assumption is wholly conjectural and unsupported. There 
is not the slightest proof of such a tendency to organize ; 
but, on the contrary, natural philosophy lays it down as 
a fundamental doctrine that matter is entirely passive— 
that is, that if put at rest it remains at rest, and if put in 
motion it remains in motion. But even if such a ten- 
dency were granted, it would transcend belief entirely that 
a mere blind property of matter should produce contriv- 
ance so ingenious and workmanship so exquisite, that the 
most perfect human sagacity and skill cannot rival it by an 
immeasurable distance. Then, further, it is not material 
forms alone which are to be accounted for, but also the 
vital principle in all organic life, and the intelligence 
exhibited by the animal creation, and most of all by man. 
To suppose these things to result from the mere juxta- 
position of material particles, is to exhibit the credulity of 
believing without the slightest evidence, and to rest our 
opinions upon fancy. 

We are shut up, therefore, to the third alternative—to 
the conclusion that, like the palace, our world must have 
been contrived and fitted up by a wise designer. After 


i02 ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 


surveying its broad plan, and observing how it bears, even 
in its minutest parts, the most indubitable marks of in- 
telligent adaptation, the mind can find no resting-place but 
in the admission of a personal Creator, endowed with the 
power, the wisdom, and other attributes, whatever they 
may be, which render him adequate to the work of con- 
structing and sustaining such a system; and then when 
we enlarge our view and take in the vast extent of the 
creation, of which the amazing discoveries of astronomical 
science give us only a faint idea, we perceive that a being 
adequate to the work of creating, upholding, and govern- 
ing such a universe, must be so great, so transcendant in 
his attributes, that we can form no higher conception of 
infinity, or of absolute perfection, than is réalized in him. 
To minds constituted like ours, it matters not that the 
proof of an infinite, self-conscious, living God is not de- 
nonstrative in its nature; it is enough that to a soul in- 
stinctively denianding such a God it carries the presump- 
tion that there is such a being up to the highest point of 
moral certainty, and thus authorizes and sustains the most 
complete conviction. 

The argument for the divine existence from the adapta- 
tion and design which are apparent must, however, in 
order to be complete, be carried forward from the aspects 
of the natural world as observed by the intelligent mind, 
to the constitution and the phenomena which the mind 
itself exhibits. In the general adaptation of the soul of 
man to its position and relations, in the fitness of each 
particular faculty to its end, and the adjustment and har- 
mony of the whole, there meet us the same indications of 


FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 103 


wisdom directed to purposes and ends which are so strik- 
ing in material nature. The relation between the eye and 
the light, the lungs and the air, the ear and the atmo- 
spheric vibrations, is not more notable and significant than 
that of the intellect to the objects of knowledge, of the 
natural sensibilities to the causes of pleasure and pain, of 
the conscience to the impression of right and wrong, and 
of the desires and the will to the forms of good presented. 
We cannot here enter on any illustration of this part of 
the argument. The mode of reasoning is the same, 
whether we attend to matter or to mind, The inner 
world supplies us proofs of a designing God profoundly 
-interesting, and, if possible, even more impressive, when 
carefully examined, than those of the world without. The 
common mind is most easily led to notice the marks of 
divine wisdom in material nature. But the facts which 
the world of mind presents are equally conclusive when 
once they are examined, as has of late been shown by 
several able writers. 

To every enlightened and really honest mind, therefore, 
what the apostle asserts so distinctly in the text is mani- 
festly true. The invisible attributes of God, even his 
eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seen since the 
creation of the world. Such a mind feels, that to refuse 
to admit this, is to resist the laws of evidence, is to do 
violence to its own urgent convictions, and to plunge into 
the most palpable absurdities. It seems impossible, 
indeed, that any person, with a healthful tone of moral 
feeling, should bring himself to an honest, deliberate con- 
clusion that there is no God, after having intelligently 


104 ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 


studied nature or himself. The irreligious man may say 
this in his heart; but he will still continue to see it 
written on every part of the fair fabric of creation—every 
house is. builded by some man, but he that built all 
things isGod! Yes, every star that sparkles in the fir- 
mament; every planet as it rolis ; the moon as she walks 
in brightness, and the sun as he travels in his strength ; 
each with its own emphatic voice declares there is a 
God! Every seed that germinates, every flower that 
blooms, every fruit that ripens, every leaf of the forest 
that trembles in the breeze, tells us there is a God! 
Every eye that sees, every ear that hears, every heart that 
throbs, every bird that flies through the midst of heaven, 
every fish that roams through the ocean’s caves, and every 
beast upon a thousand hills, declares there is a God! And 
lastly, every mind that thinks, and wills, and reasons, 
and remembers, and feels the sense of moral obligation, 
most impressively of all, gives testimony to the existence 
and perfections of a divine Creator. 


“Here is firm footing, here is solid rock, 
And all is sea besides.” 


Here we may rest unmoved. This truth admitted, the 
universe is harmonized ; much of its darkness is dispelled, 
and a key is furnished for the solution of many of its 
mysteries. If there yet remain anomalies which baffle us, 
if there are some arrangements whose design we are thus 
far unable to discover, if there are still deeps which we 
cannot fathom with our utmost reach of intellect, let us 
remember that our understanding bears a less relation to 
the Infinite Intelligence, than a grain of sand bears to 


FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 105 


the material universe; and in faith and meekness let us 
wait, till we shall be placed in that higher world, where 
with expanded intellect and clearer vision, we shall behold 
the glory of the Lord. 

If now, it be true. that the appearances of nature do 
plainly teach that there is a Supreme Being, then certainly 
it follows that all mankind are bound to recognise him. 
Paul, in the context, is speaking of the heathen; and he 
declares that even their ignorance of God is without 
excuse. It is an ignorance which exists in spite of evi- 
’ dence, and is fostered by depravity. There is no corner 
of the world so dark that the rays of the divine glory are 
not reflected there from the face of the Creation ; no eye 
is so blind that it could not discern them by attentive 
observation. 

But if the least enlightened are under obligation to 
know God from his works, much more are they whose 
minds have been educated to reflect, and to whom science 
has laid open the mysteries of nature. If such assert 
that they can see no proofs of a Creator, can it be other- 
wise than true that they are either flagrantly dishonest, 
or pitifully weak. If they are not so near to idiocy as to 
be unable to understand the connection between effects 
and causes, can they be otherwise than wholly inexcus- 
able, if they do not habitually and with full conviction, 
recognise the divine existence. When the voice of 
universal nature cries, “There is a God!” our inmost 
souls must heartily respond, “There is a God!” 

And while nature, by the light which she imparts 
respecting God, lays on us the obligation to acknowledge 


106 ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 


him, she also binds us to adore him. It is obvious to 
reflect, that he whose power was adequate to the creation 
of what our eyes behold must bealmighty. The wisdom 
which devised this wondrous mechanism, and these count- 
less forms of beauty, must be imagined to be infinite. 
The benevolence which has displayed itself to such an 
extent in the production of what is good, should certainly 
be presumed to be unimpeachable, even if in a few par- 
ticulars the harmony of things should not be clearly seen. 
And can we know a being whose power and wisdom and 
benevolence are boundless, and not be under obligation to 
regard him with ‘reverence and affection? He appears 
most worthy of our homage and our love; if, therefore, 
we withhold it, we manifestly rob him of his right. All 
that is sublime in greatness, all that is grand in intellect, 
and all that is admirable in excellence, is blended into 
ineffable glory in his character as thus exhibited; and if 
we fail to think of him with reverence, and to contem- 
plate his perfections with delight, we clearly evince that 
sin has vitiated our moral tastes, has perverted and de- 
based the best affections of our souls, 

See to it, then, that you make God a living reality to 
your daily apprehension. Be more observing of his works, 
more watchful of his providence, and more anxious to 
learn by every means all that you can learn respecting 
him. Let the truth that there is a God not only not be 
questioned, but not lost sight of for a moment. When 
you lie down, and when you rise up, when yeu sit in the 
house, and when you walk by the way, lct it be ever 
present to your thoughts. Let it comfort y:.u in sorrow, 


FOR THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 107 


and chasten the excitement ot your joy. If you are 
tempted to go in the ways of sin, let it ring in your ears 
like a voice of terror; and if you are treading in the paths 
of holiness, let it strengthen and make glad your souls. 
Let nothing tempt you to listen to the suggestions of 
scepticism even for a moment. To yield up the mind to 
them is virtually to shut your eyes, and to stop your ears, 
and with the perverseness of deliberate folly to plunge 
into the blackness of darkness. Atheism can shed no ray 
of comfort on the soul. It throws a pall over the glories 
of the universe, and shrouds all things in funereal gloom. 
Take away from me the evidence that there is a God, and 
show me that I am only a product of necessity or chance, 
without a Father, and without the hope of that divine 
sympathy for which my heart is yearning, and I will sit 
down and weep through the little that remains of life, and 
wish that I had never waked to conscious being. But so 
long as I can look over the broad earth, and the heaving 
sea, and the azure firmament, and see it written there that 
God exists, I will rejoice in my own existence, and will 
feel that there is a sun to illuminate the universe, and to 
diffuse throughout it light, and life, and blessedness !_ And 
since my reason teaches me to believe without a question 
that— 


If there’s a power above us— 
He must delight in virtue, 
And that which he delights in must be happy,— 


it shall be the great end of all my thoughts to study his 
perfections, and in my humble measure to attain his moral 


image! 


108 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


VIL 


Che Christian Revelation to be Presunred 
Divine. 


2 Putrr i. 16: For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, 


HE existence of God admitted, another question at 
once suggests itself, Has this divine Being directly 
revealed himself and made known his will to man? Of 
course, if he be recognised as the Author of nature, that 
must be acknowledged to be an expression of his thought, 
and, so far as it goes, an illustration of his attributes and 
character. By the careful study of this, to the extent of 
our faculties and time, we might expect to arrive at some 
practical conclusions as to what course of conduct on our 
part would be in accordance with his will,and would best 
promote our own welfare. But has he been pleased to 
instruct men supernaturally? Apart from the lessons 
taught by the constitution of the world and the orderly 
on-goings of the great system of natural causes, has he 
come to the intelligent soul of man with immediate in- 
spirations of his own wisdom, and as if with words from — 
his own lips? 

We were taught in childhood that he has. We have 
believed it, without hesitation, up to that point at which 
we are led to reflect on all our principal beliefs, and to ask 
on what they rest. Now doubts arise, and we feel the 


TO BE PRESUMED DIVINE. 109 


necessity of deliberate examination. In this period of 
thoughtful inquiry it is of the first importance that we 
should approach the subject, not only with a candid and 
honest spirit, with entire openness to conviction, but also 
with a just view of the position of the question. In 
regard to most inquiries in the region of practical truth, 
it is found that, on the first proposal of them, there is 
something to give the mind a prepossession in one way or 
another; something which begets a presumption either for 
a particular conclusion, or against it. The cause of this 
bias may lie, not in the subject, but in the state of the 
mind itself; in its tastes, desires, or previous modes of 
thinking. However it may be accounted for, it has too 
generally happened that those who have been led to doubt 
the reality of divine revelation, and have set themselves 
to examine the matter, have come to the inquiry with a 
conviction, or at least a feeling, that the presumption at 
the outset is against the claim that a positive revelation 
has been made. Of course, the evidence demanded 
must be of sufficient force to overcome this unfavour- 
able state of mind, as well as to convince the under- 
standing. 

The truth, we insist, is, in fact, directly the reverse of 
this very common impression of the doubting. We desire 
to show in the present discourse, and hope to make it 
appear conclusively, that to a candid inquirer, who now 
comes to a consideration of the subject, there is a strong 
antecedent presumption in favour of that professed reve- 
lation which claims our credence in the Bible; that such 


a person is justified in assuming that, aside from its 


110 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


immediate and proper proofs, there is a high probability 
that these received deliverances of God to men are genu- 
ine and true. 

Without going into the philosophical question of the 
conceivable possibility of a revelation, or inquiring as to 
the reality of the miracles, and prophecies, and testimonies, 
by which it claims to be authenticated, we say first of | 
all, that the very existence of this alleged revelation, in 
the form in which we find it, affords a presumption of its 
truth. 

The first thing that strikes one on glancing at the 
books of the Old and New Testament, in which what is 
called the Christian revelation is contained, is the exceed- 
ingly heterogeneous character of their contents. They 
present a collection of the writings of a great number of 
persons, scattered through a long course of ages, of vari- 
ous social grades, from the condition of herdsmen and 
fishermen to that of eminent statesmen and illustrious 
sovereigns; of different sorts of talent, of dissimilar tastes, 
habits, and culture, and, to a great extent, unconnected 
with each other. The styles of composition are as diverse 
as the authors. There are genealogies, geographical and 
ethnological details, fragmentary and connected histories ; 
poetry, including the pastoral, the psalm, the anthem, the 
war-song, the elegy, the drama, and the highest range of 
the descriptive and impassioned ; biographies and pictures 
of social life and manners, proverbs, discourses, precepts, 
parables, letters. What a medley! one might naturally 
exclaim on first looking at the volume. A little of all 
ages, of all sorts of men, and of all varieties of human 


TO BE PRESUMED DIVINE. lll 


thought! This, regarding them simply as authentic 
writings, and just as you regard Herodotus and Livy, 
Plato and Seneca, Pindar and Horace. 

But on even a cursory reading of these writings, hetero- 
geneous as they seem, you cannot fail to be equally im- 
pressed with a second fact about them—this, namely, that 
they have, after all, a strange and most striking unity. 
One spirit breathes throughout the whole. The same 
conception of God, as the eternal, self-existent, and in- 
finite Creator, of his natural government of the world, and 
of his moral government of rational creatures ; the same 
general notions of right and wrong ; the same views of 
the design of human existence, of the individual responsi- 
bility of men, of the blessedness of well-doing and of the 
miseries of sin; of the guilt and want of mankind, of the 
justice, the goodness, and the grace of God, and of the 
way of reconciliation with him. Nor does this unity of 
sentiment, of spirit, and of general scope and purpose 
seem less, but rather greater, the more carefully and 
thoroughly these various compositions are examined. 
With all the diversities naturally resulting from the fact 
that each writer exhibits the peculiar characteristics of 
his own genius, age, country, language, and personal con- 
dition, and notwithstanding that the books of the several 
authors were published independently of each other, these 
writings are so entirely alike in their moral tone, and so 
completely harmonious in their presentations of the 
cardinal truths of religion, that they appear as if originally 
designed to make one perfect whole when brought to- 
gether, like the separate beams in the framework of a 


112 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


building. No competent person can attentively read the 
Christian Scriptures, whatever may be his opinion about 
their origin, without perceiving that there is one continuous 
stream of thought and feeling flowing down throughout 
the whole, from the earliest to the latest, varying only in 
this, that it grows deeper and broader by frequent homo- 
genous accessions as it sweeps onward through the ages. 
Here, then, is an undeniable fact to be accounted for. 
Through this line of individual men, posted at various in- 
tervals back to the beginning of the world, there have 
been transmitted certain distinctive views of God and 
religion, which out of this line have come to us from no 
other portion of the race. That these men have not been 
mere copyists from each other, the specific diversities, and 
the accessions and progressive development of thought to 
which we have referred, afford decisive proof. Two ques- 
tions meet us therefore, namely, How came they, any of 
them, by views at once so unique in themselves and so 
immeasurably superior in intellectual and moral elevation 
to those attained by the historians, the poets, and the 
sages of all the world besides? And then, how came 
they, writing separately and each for his own particular 
end, living also some of them centuries and even thousands 
of years apart, so to harmonize with and to supplement 
each other, that taken together their writings form one 
grand and well-adjusted whole? We will not now assert 
that with these questions before us the conviction must 
arise that there is something supernatural in all this, and 
that these men must have been the instruments by which 
a real positive revelation has been made ; but certainly it 


= 


ae oe 


T0 BE PRESUMED DIVINE. 113 


is saying very little to say that the facts of the case, if 
candidly considered, do justify us in approaching the 
Bible, do demand even that we approach it, with a strong 
presumption that it is what it purports to be—the word of 
the living God supernaturally conveyed to men. If each 
of the authors of the sacred books, in his own age, for his 
own ends, and without the least relation to the others, 
had wrought a piece of brass into a given form ; and if 
at last, when these pieces were all collected and compared, 
it had been found that they together formed a perfect 
piece of mechanism, a watch for instance, the impression 
of a superhuman agency directing the whole matter would 
hardly have been stronger than it now actually is. 

The presumption thus created by the existence of the 
Christian revelation in the form in which we find it, is 
greatly strengthened, we have further to observe, by the 
obvious and admitted fact that it has entered most pro- 
foundly into the life and thought of the world. This cur- 
rent of professed revelation, that, like a river flowing 
through many lands and climes, has held its way through 
the revolutions of centuries and the countless vicissitudes 
of human affairs, has not been an insulated thing, a mere 
object of attention and of interest. As the waters are not 
confined within the river banks, but penetrate the border- 
ing lands, ascend in vapour to fall again in showers, and 
thus enter with their vitalizing power the domain of vege- 
table life—so what have claimed to be the truths received 
from heaven have entered into and permeated the heart of 
aumanity to a wonderful extent, and exhibit themselves 
in all history, in the thought, the learning, the institutions, 


114 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


the enterprises, and the aspirations of the most enlightened 
and vigorous portions of the race. 

We are not here giving an opinion, let it be remembered, 
but merely stating a fact familiar to every one acquainted 
with history and with the ideas that enter into our modern 
civilization. It has been true, according to all historical 
records, and all the surviving literature of past ages, that 
a belief in the unity of God and in his providential govern- 
ment of the world—a belief which, wherever it has existed, 
has exhibited its power to elevate human character and 
thought—has never been held consistently and steadily, 
except along with a prevailing faith in revelation. It ig 
equally obvious that the doctrines in regard to the rights 
of man which have for centuries been working their way 
in the most enlightened States ; which are steadily miti- 
gating social evils, raising to a higher level the masses of 
the people, developing the sense of individual manhood 
and weakening the arm of the oppressor ; which, either 
through institutions or through the force of public opinion, 
are exalting men to the responsibilities and benefits of 
civil and religious liberty ;—it is true, I say, that these 
doctrines are to be traced to those views of the value, 
the accountability, the immortal nature and high destiny 
of individual man, which were originally delivered in the 
so-called sacred books, and have never been found to any 
considerable extent, except where these are found. If it 
were possible to eliminate from the structure of modern 
civilized society all the elements derived directly or in- 
directly from these, to withdraw them would. be to take 
away what is most vital, most distinctive, most noble, and 


TO BE PRESUMED DIVINE. 115 


most hopeful as regards the future of humanity. The 
very men who profess now to reject revealed religion, 
would cling with all tenacity to fundamental truths and 
principles pertaining to God, to man, and to society, which 
have been derived alone from the professed records of 
revelation. To this it must be added, that all depart- 
ments of the literature of the most cultivated nations— 
history, eloquence, poetry, criticism, and even fiction— 
as well as the higher fields of science and philosophy, are 
interfused with elements of thought, of taste, of imagina- 
tion, and with notions that enter into and determine to 
no small extent, the modes of reasoning which are adopted, 
the source of which is undeniably the same. Whether 
the Bible be true or false the fact is before our eyes that 
its contents have entered profoundly into the mind and 
heart of humanity, and have to a great extent become 
blended with its intellect and sentiment alike. 

Nor can it be said that other pretended systems of re- 
ligion have done the same. There are no facts of history 
by which such an assertion can be justified. What claims 
to be the Christian revelation extends back to the begin- 
ning of the world, and covers the whole period of the 
world’s life ; always self-consistent, the same in essence, 
and changing only so far as change is necessarily implied 
in a progressive and orderly development. It has no 
parallel among the systems which have only existed for 
comparatively short periods, and have been subject to 
constant modifications of their essential character. It has 
reached a vastly larger portion of the race than any one 


of them. It has wrought far more deeply and effectively 
8 


116 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


so far as it has extended. We have in this view, certaialy, 
a good ground for presuming at once its reality and its 
intrinsic reasonableness and power. 

Still further, a third fact lies before us in regard to the 
asserted Christian revelation, which, fairly considered, 
must predispose us to receive it. To the statement just 
made, that it has entered deeply into the world’s life, we 
have to add, what is equally significant, that the effects 
which it has wrought, both on individual man and on 
society, have uniformly been salutary in a very eminent 
degree. ; 

That the principles of action, the spirit insisted on, and 
the ends proposed in the Christian revelation are eminently 
pure and noble, the stoutest unbelief has never hesitated 
to acknowledge. That the influence of these things on 
those with whose minds and hearts they are brought in 
contact, must be very positive and eminently good, is of 
course a necessary conclusion from the nature of the case. 
The whole history of Christianity, and of Judaism as well, 
is rich, moreover, in illustration of its actual effects. Let 
it not be imagined that we are going about to show that 
faith in revelation has not been sometimes found asso- 
iated with ignorance and superstition, and individual and 
social degeneracy. We have no reluctance to the admission 
that it has. But what we state is, and no intelligent per- 
son can dispute it, that the fact is patent that these evils 
never have resulted, and never can result, from a belief in 
revelation and the legitimate influence of the truths pro- 
fessedly revealed. As Christianity has come in contact 
with mankind in all degrees of culture, it has been re- 


SSS ae ee 


TO BE PRESUMED DIVINE. 117 


ceived by the ignorant, the superstitious, and the degraded. 
As its good influences can only operate in a gradual man- 
ner for the improvement of character, and as they are 
liable to be impeded in their action by accidental causes 
found in the particular outward condition of those who 
may enjoy them, it may often happen in the case of any 
individual or people, that although the process of improve- 
ment is steadily going forward, there are evils, great and 
obvious, which have not been reached as yet. Unless it 
appears that the evils referred to are the natural and 
proper fruit of the influence of the Christian Scriptures, 
or, at least, that this has no fitness nor tendency to effect 
their ultimate removal, their existence in connection with 
a belief in revelation, cannot rightfully create a prejudice 
against the claim of that revelation to be real and divine. 

But while Christianity does not appear at any time to 
have delivered mankind at once and wholly, on the first 
reception of it, from the evils under the power of which it 
found them, the examples of its eminently salutary effects, 
on both individual and social character, are, in all periods 
of its history, abundant and acknowledged. When first 
preached among the polytheistic, licentious, and generally 
" corrupt nations included in the Roman Empire, it ere long 
did what the few moralists and sages of antiquity had 
sought to do in vain ; it gave a fatal blow to the popular 
idolatry, and, in spite of venerable associations, and splen- 
did shrines, and captivating ceremonies, it brought the 
gods into general contempt, and left their temples to stand 
empty and deserted. Then out of the degenerate masses 
of the people it raised up vast multitudes, of both sexes, 


118 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


and of all ages and conditions, in whose lives the purest 
virtues, and in whose sufferings and deaths, in attestation 
of the sincerity and strength of their belief, the sternest 
and the noblest heroism were everywhere exhibited. All 
this on the testimony of secular and unfriendly historians, 
of imperial edicts and Roman annalists. The very highest 
instances of unpretending goodness, of unfaltering steadi- 
ness of principle, of generous self-sacrifice, of obedience to 
the sense of duty, of sublime courage to endure, are, by 
common consent, admitted to abound in the authentic re- 
cords of the noble army of Christian martyrs and confes- 
sors. These, too, are allowed to be the proper products 
of Christianity, and not things incidentally connected 
with it. 

It has sometimes seemed, to careless or superficial 
readers of history, that the state of the western nations of 
the old world during the middle ages, when Christianity 
had been established and generally diffused, was in con- 
flict with the supposition of its elevating power. The 
dark ages, they observe, succeeded the early and widely- 
extended triumphs of the cross. Yes; but along with 
this we have another fact that stands in equal prominence 
beside it. The mighty deluge of barbarism that swept 
over the Roman Empire was sufficiently vast in its extent 
to engulf, as in the bosom of a mighty ocean, all the ele- 
ments and forces of the existing civilization, and Chris- 
tianity among the rest. Intellectual and moral twilight 
was a necessary consequence ; and it could not have been 
otherwise than that a long period would be required in 
order that Christianity, operating simply as one restoring 


TO BE PRESUMED DIVINE. 119 


energy in the abysses of this vast chaos, might make 
itself distinctly seen and felt in its proper character and 
influence, No wonder that a little leaven, overwhelmed 
with a continent of meal, should be long in pervading the 
whole mass. That the influence of Christianity did much 
to mitigate and to remove the horrors of the medieval 
darkness, and that it has supplied many of the best ideas, 
activities, and elevating forces of our modern civilization, 
are facts about which there is no dispute among those 
who are competent to offer an opinion. It is owing im no 
small measure, to state the matter very moderately, to the 
influence of Christianity, that humanity has so far 
emerged from its deep and long eclipse. 

Tt must be noted, too, that m the activity of that new 
life and free expansion to which Christianity has again 
attained, especially within the present century, she is pro- 
ducing in the sight of all men the same wonderful trans- 
formations of individual and social character, the same 
spirit of benevolence, the same noble charities, the same 
antagonism to evil, the same hopes and labours for the 
welfare of mankind, the same virtues, culture, and refine- 
ment, and the same sober, intelligent, and healthful piety, 


as in her early days. Never was it more manifest than 


now that the legitimate fruits of the Christian revelation 


are eminently salutary, are contributing richly to the well- 
being of the world. Can it be otherwise than rational to 
presame that such a professed revelation will prove on 
examination to be genuine ! 

Not less significant is a fourth fact which presents 
itself at the outset to the inquirer about the Christian re- 


120 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


velation, It has thus far stood secure against all assaults 
of those who have sought to overthrow it, although these 
assaults have been many, persistent, and often conducted 
with great ability and learning. Nothing pertaining to 
the past is better known than that the attempt to storm 
the citadel of revelation has been repeated till it seems to 
have been assailed at every point; and that it still re- 
mains uncarried we have the witness of our own eyes and 
ears. 

The ancient prophets, each in his turn, encountered the 
resistance of unbelief. They were charged with prophesy- 
ing falsely in the name of God; of arrogating to them- 
selves the office and authority of religious teachers, and 
wishing to secure a pre-eminence of influence. They suf- 
fered persecution and sometimes death at the hands of 
those who denied their divine authority. Yet their teach- 
ings lived, and gained and kept a place in the hearts of 
multitudes. When Jesus of Nazareth appeared and 
claimed to be the predicted Messiah and the Redeemer 
and Light of the world, a corrupt Judaism expressed the 
strength of its hostility, the venom of its hate, by nailing 
him, as if a malefactor, to the cross. When the apostles 
and the primitive disciples began at Jerusalem the preach- 
ing of the word, they too were met with an equally deter- 
mined and virulent opposition from those who, because not 
understanding their own Scriptures, did not perceive that 
Christianity was but the full development of the faith 
delivered to their fathers. Yet steadily the Christian doc- 
trines won their way. 

Then followed the long and mighty struggle between 


TO BE PRESUMED DIVINE. - 12] 


Christianity and the prevailing systems of philosophy and 
religion throughout the Roman empire. It was a con- 
test of life and death. From the nature of the case there 
could be no compromise, no truce. The new must exter- 
minate the old, or the old the new. On every ground on 
which there seemed to be any hope of making a stand 
against the advancing Christian faith, a stand was made. 
At every point imagined to be vulnerable the system was 
pressed with direct attack. Whatever might be done by 
the civil power to resist and crush the Christian religion, 
was done with unflinching determination and barbarity, 
not only by the steady policy of the government, but by 
those horrible and repeated seasons of persecution during 
which the earth was deluged with martyr blood. What- 
ever might be achieved or hoped in the same direction by 
the use of the pen, was attempted by learned and able 
writers, such as Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, and 
others, who, not content with a defence of the popular 
beliefs, assailed the religion of Christ with argument and 
ridicule, with misrepresentation and abuse. Yet, after all, 
the Christian faith held on its way and triumphed. 

So it has been in the modern world. ‘The wits, philo- 
sophers, and savans of France, in the last century, having 
resolved, in a spirit of implacable hostility, to exterminate 
all faith in the Christian revelation, assailed it with pun- 
gent satire, with the coarsest ribaldry, with caricatures 
introduced into the drama, and all the current forms of 
popular literature, with the subtlety and acuteness of 
philosophy, and with weapons alleged to be furnished by 
the discoveries of modern science. English Deism, in a 


122 THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


higher style of thought, with greater strength of reason- 
ing, with no little real learning, enlisting champions who, 
to great metaphysical acumen, added untiring patience and 
iixed determination, attacked the historical credit, the 
supernatural credentials, and the asserted revelations of 
the Christian Scriptures. There was no lack of will, or 
talent, or diligent endeavour, for the entire demolition of 
the venerable structure of truth accepted as from heaven. 
Germany, with her unrivalled scholarship, her unflinching 
boldness, her amazing keenness of analysis and tenuity of 


thought, and her adventurous criticism, has so put to the - 


torture the historic records and the peculiar doctrines of 
Christianity, as to make it impossible to conceive that any 
more formidable trial can await them. And, finally, the 
latest forms of German unbelief have flowed into the chan- 
nels of English and American thought, and now for several 
years have been making demonstrations against the popular 
faith in a positive revelation. 

What then is the result? Has the idea of a divine 
revelation come to be scouted generally either by the most 
intelligent and the best thinkers, or by the great mass of 
ordinary people? Has a single pillar of Christianity, by 
common acknowledgment, been removed out of its place ? 
Has one entrenchment undeniably been carried, or one 
battery silenced, or one breastwork left in ruins?) Who 
affirms this? Who believes it? It is doubtless true, 
that now, as always, there are some who reject revealed 
religion. But it is equally obvious that the vast majority 
of all who have at any time heartily believed Christianity, 
believe it still, nay more, believe it the more intelligently 


| 
; 
‘ 


TO BE PRESUMED DIVINE. 123 


and strongly because of the fierce assaults through which 
it has been passing. Observe we are not asserting that 
Christianity is true, we are simply calling attention to the 
fact that unbelief, though it has made the attempt so often 
and with all imaginable weapons, has not yet proved it false, 
nor even weakened its hold upon the mind and heart of 
that part of the human race who have once intelligently 
received it. Approaching Christianity to-day as an in- 
quirer in relation to its truth, I see it standing, not shat- 
tered and tottering by the multiplied assaults of ages, but 
as yet unharmed and safe ; a Malakoff, that hitherto has 
proved impregnable ; or better still, a grand old rock that, 
lying in mid-ocean, and beaten by mighty surges through 
successive centuries, still lifts its untroubled head in stern, 
yet calm repose. Is it not natural, then, since such I find 
it, that.I should come to this professedly divine religion, 
with a strong presumption arising in my heart that what 
it claims to be I shall actually find it when I have 
thoroughly examined ? | 

We will note but one thing more. It is a fact which 
no one tolerably informed as to the condition and move- 
ments of the religious world will question, that at no 
period of its history was Christianity more vital, more 
powerful, more expectant and progressive, than, at the 
present time. There may have been an intenser earnest- 
ness and loftier courage in the day of her primitive con- 
quests ; but then she was weak in numbers and resources. 
To-day, her host is vast in multitude. In position she is 
strong ; for she is openly recognised by the public senti- 

ment of the most enlightened nations of the earth, and 


124 THE OHRISTIAN REVELATION 


her principles are inwrought to a very great extent inte 
the governments and laws, the institutions, the policies, 
the social life, in short, into the entire structure of civili- 
zation, by which these nations are distinguished. How 
vast the amount of genius and learning enlisted in her 
service! How large a portion of literature, and art, and 
science is penetrated with her spirit! ~- How immense the 
wealth at her command! How extensive and available 
her opportunities and means of bringing her influence to 
bear upon the world! Within the last. half. century she 
seems to have awaked to new activity, and to have girded 
up her loins for more extended and energetic action. Con- 
verts to her are multiplied by hundreds of thousands in a 
single year, and these not converts of the head only, but 
of the heart. Her sacred books are translated into all the 
chief languages of men. Her efforts are more than ever 
directed to the elevation and purification of social life, 
and the recovery of the world to goodness, by the univer- 
sal application of her forces. Her plans are broad as the 
world. Her heralds are found in the remote islands of the 
sea, and in the centre of continents long covered with 
thick darkness. The force of habit is coming to strengthen 
the religious sentiment and conviction of her disciples, and 
to give steadiness and power to their exertions. The suc- 
cess of her domestic and foreign missionary enterprises, are 
stimulating her courage and inspiring her with hope. God, 
in his providence, finally, has done so much to remove the 
obstacles that in past ages checked her progress, that her 
expansive energy is now almost literally working without 


obstruction. "i 


T0 BE PRESUMED DIVINE. 125 


All this I see, you see, and all men see on every side. 
This life, and vigour, and progressive energy of the sys- 
tem of religion which rests on that professed revelation 
begun in the early ages of the world and completed in the 
days of Christ and his apostles, is certainly a most notice- 
able fact. It cannot but make a strong impression on 
every one who thoughtfully regards it. Can falsehood be 
imagined to have such vitality? Could anything but 
truth have so sustained itself through the revolving cycles 
of the past, that while empires, and dynasties, and cities, 
and monuments, and even literatures have perished, this 
should still seem as fresh as if immortal, and as full of 
activity and power as if in youth? Could anything have 
maintained so permanent a hold on the intellect and heart 
of the human race, a hold still growing firmer and giving 
promise of ultimate ascendency, which itself was without 
reality, a mere chimera? It will surely be admitted that 
taking what is called the Christian revelation as I find it, 
living, operative, and steadily extending the circle of its 
influence, while I bear in mind its history, there does 
appear to be a very strong presumption that its claims to 
be divine are just, before I begin to examine directly its 
credentials. 

Remember, then, that so much as this is settled. When 
doubts have been excited, and you would seriously inquire 
as to the truth of the Christian revelation, you have no 
right, at this period of Christian history, to assume that 
the probability is all against it, and to call on Christianity 
to furnish proofs that may convince you, while in such a 
state of mind, beyond all cavil. She has her proper cre- 


136 - THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


dentials, doubtless, if she be indeed from heaven, and she 
will not hesitate to show them. But since the facts of 
her ancient origin, of her perpetual power, of her salutary 
influence, of her steadfastness amidst attacks, and of her 
present vigour and advancing growth, create so strong a 
presumption in her favour, she is fairly entitled to take 
the benefit of her position. She may rightfully throw the 
burden of proof on you. She may demand, with justice, 
that you shall admit her claims until you shall be able con- 
clusively and finally to overthrow them; until you can 
— rationally account for her origin and character, her pro- 
gressive life and action,—in short, for all the wonderful 
phenomena of her past and present existence. When you 
shall have seriously attempted this, you will have put 
yourself in a position to appreciate the proofs direct and 
positive, which she will then hold herself prepared to offer 
you. 

Deal fairly, then, when you approach with your inquiries 
the Christian revelation. You see at a glance how vener- 
able it is—going back for its beginnings to the morning 
of the world. You know that in its light, and hope, and 
inspiration, humanity has been exalted, intellect and genius 
quickened, art and science born, individual and social life 
ennobled, and truth and justice, benevolence and moral 
virtue in all forms, promoted among men. You have it in 
certain knowledge, that millions of the wisest, the greatest, 
and the best of earth—amillions of the poor, the sorrowful, 
the oppressed—amillions of every capacity, condition, and 
age, have found in heartily believing it new life and pure 
affections, a solid inward peace, tranquillity amidst life’s 


TO BE PRESUMED DIVINE. 127 


fiercest storms, and deep serenity of soul, or joyful exulta- 
tion, in the darkness and agony of death. Admit, then, 
to yourself, that, with all these facts before you, the pre- 
sumption is so strong in favour of its truth, that it is most 
unreasonable to ask for such an amount and kind of im- 
mediate proof as would leave no possibility of cavil. 
Enough if it be found sustained by evidence which must 
convince and satisfy a truly honest and impartial mind. 

Consider, too, that if the Christian revelation, as it has 
been received for ages, is divine, it must be the greatest of 
misfortunes to reject it as a fable. If it be indeed a sun 
kindled of God to illuminate the moral darkness of our 
world, it will shine on to cheer, and warm, and bless the 
happy multitudes who welcome it, though you shall avert 
your eyes and hide from its beams in the thick shades of 
unbelief. You have nothing—nothing—to gain if it be 
false. You have everything to hope for life, for death, for 
an immortality beyond, if, as you have been taught from 
childhood to believe, it is indeed a real utterance, a pre- 
cious gift of the everliving God to man. May God enable 
every one of you to say with full conviction, “The word 
of God is heard in the Christian Scriptures, lor we have 
not followed cunningiy devised fables }” 


128 CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN 


N@RE & 


Christiantty Authenticated in the Experience 
of its Wotver. 


JOHN vi. 67-69: Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? 
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shail we go? Thow 
hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou 
art that Christ, the Son of the living God. 


MONG those who attended on the ministry of Christ 
there were found, it appears, two sorts of professed 
disciples. There were some who were ready to attach 
themselves to him as followers, that were disciples of the 
understanding merely. They had observed his personal 
character. They had been struck with the extraordinary 
wisdom of his teachings. They had witnessed many of 
his mighty works, and had listened to the expositions he 
had given of many passages in the prophets as pointing 


to himself. On the whole, it seemed to them that the 


evidence of his Messiahship preponderated ; and they were 
inclined to reckon themselves as his adherents. 

The other class were, in some degree at least, disciples 
of the Spirit. With views of his character and mission as 
yet exceedingly defective in some particulars, they never- 
theless felt the divine power of the doctrines which he 
taught. In the consciousness which they found deep 
within themselves that his words were indeed spirit and 
life to the soul, there was an inward witness that he came 


THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 129 


from heaven—the ground of a profound and heartfelt con- 
viction that he was really the Christ of God. 

There is nothing to excite surprise in the fact that those 
whose profession of discipleship was merely speculative 
and intellectual were brought to a stand, and even led to 
abandon Christ by difficulties. Their own power to un- 
derstand what Jesus did and said was the measure of their 
faith. So long as they saw and heard nothing which they 
did not seem to themselves to comprehend—nothing which 
puzzled and perplexed them—they were ready to admit 
his claims. But when he uttered in their hearing truths 
which were so spiritual and so repugnant to their sensuous 
apprehensions, as those which related to the receiving of 
his body and blood as the condition, and the elements of 
life, their understandings were confounded ; and because 
of this, they forthwith turned back, and concluded that 
they had been deceived. This was entirely natural. 

But in regard to those who were driven to attach them- 
selves to Christ by an inward perception of something 
divine in his person and his ministry, and by the response 
which his teachings awakened in their own moral natures, 
the case was wholly different. The faith of these did not 
rest on mere convictions of the intellect. It had a far 
deeper and more certain ground. Because this was the 
fact ; because their inmost hearts felt the divinity which 
was in Christ, aud their moral natures recognised and 
witnessed to the certainty of what he taught, it was not 
possible that any difficulties should overturn their con 
fidence and drive them from him. Their understandings 
might be baffled; strange mysteries, and even apparent 


130 CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN 


impossibilities and contradictions, might confront them. 
But what then? After all, there remained a voice in their 
own consciousness, which gave decisive and persistent 
witness to the Messiahship of Christ, and to the truth of 
the doctrines he delivered; so that when the question was 
propounded as is related in the text—will ye also go away ? 
—it was altogether natural that they should answer as 
they did, repelling the thought of such a thing at once. 
It was, for them, impossible not to feel that to turn away 
from Christ, whatever perplexities might press them for 
the moment, would be to actin known and flagrant opposi- 
tion to the truth. They could not but believe what they 
themselves had felt as vital truth in their inmost souls. 
To go away from one who had the words of eternal life, 
and in regard to whom they were able to say, We believe 
and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living 
God, seemed nothing short of the most preposterous folly. 

Here, then, we have presented to our thoughts a most 
important fact; this, namely, that those who really enter 
into the spirit of Christianity, and feel somewhat of its 
true impression on their souls, find, in their own experi- 
ence of its power, the most conclusive and satisfying proof 
that it is indeed a divine religion. We wish, in the pre- 
sent discourse, to set forth this fact distinctly. It is no 
part of our purpose to undervalue the various other kinds 
of evidence on which the certainty of the Christian revela- 
tion rests; but simply to insist that even leaving these 
aside, the gospel in itself—in its own peculiar power and 
life—does carry directly to the soul that cordially receives 
it, the undeniable credentials of divinity; does generate 


t 


ss 


THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 131 


within an experimental consciousness in which there is 
good and sufficient warrant for a firm, unfaltering faith— 
a faith which places the suggestion of an abandonment of 
Christ in the light of a sheer absurdity. 

First, then, let us set befure us, as distinctly as we can, 
the state of an intelligent and thoughtful person who as 
yet has not heartily received the gospel. He has been 
led, we will suppose, to some degree of acquaintance with 
himself, and to some serious reflections on the destiny 
that may await him. 

What, then, are his convictions and feelings? What 
sort of a self-consciousness has he? What are the obstacles 
he finds in the way of being satisfied and happy? 

He has, first of all, a deep and painful conviction that 
he is out of his right relations to God and to the universe. 
He has not, perhaps, very definite apprehensions of the 
nature and extent of the moral obligations he is under. 
He does not understand precisely what God would have 
him be and do. But yet he knows enough to know that 
the main drift of both his inward and his outward life is 
wrong; so that he is by no means such a being as he 
should be. That he wants delight in God’; that he lacks 
the moral qualities which belong to a holy being; that 
with a strange and humiliating depravity of moral appe- 
tite, he is prone continually to what is evil; he is quite 
distinctly conscious ; and all this, he is convinced, should 
be directly the reverse. He is, therefore, self-condemned. 
Conscience, whenever he listens to her voice, declares that 
he is a guilty creature. Of course he also feels that God 
condemns him, and that justly. The ineffable holiness of 


v 


132 CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN 


the divine character, when he turns his thoughts in that 
direction, awakens emotions of terror only—none of love 
—within his heart. If he reads or hears the law of God, 
and ponders on its import, it is only to perceive that the 
weight of its condemnation, the terrible wrath which it 
denounces, rests upon himself; and so, turn where he 
will, resort to what he will, he has a wearying, crushing 
burden on his soul. 

Along with this, he has the consciousness of moral 
weakness too. Instead of healthful and tender sensibili- 
ties, there is within him the coldness of a death-like 
apathy. Instead of activity and power to undertake and 
to perform the right, he seems to himself benumbed and 
palsied, as it were, and impotent to good. The harmony 
of his being is all gone ; and like a piece of complicated 
mechanism, whose wheels have lost their original adjust- 
ment, and no longer play aright into each other, his moral 
faculties are all ajar, and will not be combined for the 
working out of good. His occasional better impulses are 
overborne by the power of evil. He is in bondage to cor- 
ruption. It is in vain that he sometimes resolves and 
makes some struggles to get free. Such efforts come to 
nothing, and only serve to show him how heavy and how 
strong the chains that bind him are. He finds, as a fact of 
fearful omen, that by a law that reigns within him, when 
he would do good, evil is present with him. 

Still further, in addition to all this, he feels deep in his 
soul desires the most insatiable and restless. With all 
his efforts he has not been able in the least to appease the 
sense of inward want. He has often fancied that he was 


e 


THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 133 


going to do it speedily ; but he has always found himself 
deceived. No pleasures of sense, no gratifications of 
imagination and of taste, no heights of honour or of 
power, no treasures of knowledge, no gifts of genius con- 
sciously possessed, no affluence and magnificence of wealth ; 
not any, nor all, of the many forms of finite good which 
surround him on all sides, and of which he has been able 
to make experiment, or form a judgment, appear when 
carefully examined at all adapted to satisfy the craving 
which he feels. He is sure, at last, that they cannot do 
it. His longings are for something congenial with the 
highest and the strongest instincts of his spiritual nature. 
It is something vast, something noble, something infinitely 
grand dnd lovely, something holy and divine, and endur- 
ing as eternity itself, that he is reaching after. He knows 
not what it is, nor where, nor how, he is ever going to 
find it, Yet he perceives that so long as such appetites 
are burning unsatisfied within his soul, he never can have 
rest, never can even approximate to a state of happiness. 
Look where he will, try what he will, his heart yearneth 
evermore. 

Such is a very general, and of course a very imperfect 
sketch, of the state of an enlightened and seriously reflect- 
ing person, who has not as yet received Christ and the 
gospel to his heart. What with the sense of guilt that 
haunts him, the want of moral strength and freedom 
which he feels, and the consciousness of necessities that 
nothing he has found will satisfy, he has in his own 
bosom all the ingredients of a hopeless wretchedness—the 
elements indeed of hell itself. There needs nothing but 


134 CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN 


the steady march of time, as he all too plainly sees, to fill 
up the measure of his iniquity and his despair. 

Now let us, in the second place, suppose that this same 
person is led, through divine grace, heartily to believe the 
gospel—to make the actual experiment of its power upon 
himself. He accepts Christianity as a system really from 
God. He sees in its provisions a ground of hope for him. 
He commits his soul to Christ, as the New Testament 
directs, and believes the promise that through his sacrifice 
and mediation, he shall be accepted of God, and sanctified 
and saved. He is now a Christian, in the true and 
spiritual meaning of the term. He has begun to know, by 
its influence felt within him, how much efficiency the gospel 
really has, as a means of relief for necessities lke his, 
What then is the result? What has he found in Christ, 
and in his word ? 

He has found, first, pardon and justification. At the 
sight of Jesus, God’s own Son, voluntarily suffering in 
his stead—bearing his iniquity—dying to redeem him 
from the curse—he feels that mercy may be shown to 
him—a sinner, and yet divine justice be untarnished. 
His own conscience is satisfied. The law of God he per- 
celves is honoured without his punishment. His heart, 
once cold and hard, is melted now ; and he weeps warm, 
gushing tears of genuine contrition, while he gazes long 
and tenderly on the great atoning sacrifice. Now the 
pressure of his conscious guilt is gone. His sins are not 
forgotten ; he never—never can forget them. Nor has 
he ceased to feel that they are hateful ; on the contrary, 
he loathes them more and more. But they do not make 


THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 135 


him wretched now. They do not fill his soul with fears, 
The thunders of the law are hushed. When he ventures 
to look upward to the holy throne of God, he meets the 
greeting smile of a Father reconciled, and perceives that 
he is now acknowledged as a child of the Most High. 
In short, he is the blessed man whose iniquities are for- 
given, whose sin is covered, and to whom there remaineth 
no more condemnation. He is justified by faith and has 
peace with God—a consciousness of inward harmony, both 
with his character and government. 

He has found, too, inward grace—the grace of the 
Holy Ghost—which has now begun to work effectually in 
that weak, disordered, fettered soul of his, that but a little 
while before was so powerless in relation to all good. 
The pulses of new life have begun to beat within his 
heart. The Spirit that helpeth his infirmities, has so 
quickened his moral sensibilities, that now they feel the 
impression of holy objects. The enfeebled powers have 
received new vigour; and by the healthful stimulus of 
holy love are urged into activity in the attempt to meet 
the demands of duty. If there are yet conflicts, many ' 
conflicts, in his heart, yet sin no longer reigns there. 
His enemies give back. The all-sufficient grace of Christ 
sustains his feebleness, and enables him not only to main- 
tain his ground, but to gain successive victories. In a 
word, he who before was in a miserable bondage, and 
could not break his bands, has now begun to taste the 
freedom of the holy; is fast becoming divested of all 
his fetters ; and in the strength of God, already exults in 
the prospect of certain and complete deliverance. He 


136 CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN 


feels himself, in this respect, a new creature in Christ 
Jesus. 

Finally, the person whose case we are supposing, in 
making trial of Christ and of his gospel, has found the 
inward satisfaction which his craving soul desired. We 
do not mean to say that his satisfaction is yet perfect. 
In the earlier stages of his Christian life, the influences of 
the Christian scheme of grace and truth have only begun 
to reach and affect his heart; and of course have only 
answered their end in part. But so much as this is true. 
This man who just now felt that he had appetites that 
never yet had found their proper objects; who felt the 
inexpressible longings of a soul whose profoundest wants 
were wholly unrelieved; this restless, hungry, thirsty, 
often baffled and deeply disappointed spirit, has now at 
last discovered a full supply of the very good he craves. 
He has found and recognised the bread of life. He has 
come to the gushing fountain of sweet waters, and at once 
perceives that this will slake effectually his so long 
quenchless thirst. He no longer has occasion to weary 
himself with fruitless searchings. It only now remains 
that he eat and drink till he is filled and satisfied,—till 
his soul rests because it has nothing to desire. 

Thus, then, the man who before he tried for himself 
the efficacy of Christianity as a remedy for his distresses, 
was oppressed with a consciousness of guilt, was held 
through moral weakness in a grievous vassalage to evil, 
and was tortured constantly by cravings that could not be 
appeased; has found, on actually admitting the gospel te 
his heart, his sense of guilt removed, his shattered nature 


a 


THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 137 


raised up and disenthralled, and his famishing spirit put 
in possession of a full supply of congenial and satisfying 
good. He has received into his soul, with Christ and the 
gospel, the germs of immortal life and the beginnings of 
an immortal blessedness. This, he has learned by his own 
personal experience, is what Christianity can do for a 
sinful man like him. 

With such a case before us as this which we have stated 
—and this is only the case of ordinary occurrence—we are 
put in a position to see and feel the force of the experi- 
mental argument for the truth and value of the gospel. 
Here is a man who, when he was guilty, helpless, and 
pining with inward want, has been induced to make trial 
of the Christian method of relief. He has come to Christ 
for help, and thankfully accepted the provisions of his 
gospel. In doing this he has found effectual deliverance 
from his miseries; the very deliverance he sought. He 
has reached the very happiness which his soul instinc- 
tively demanded, and which he had ranged creation over, 
all in vain, to find. There is no mistake in this. He 
was wretched; he zs at peace. He was in galling chains; 
he zs in glorious liberty. He was perishing of inward 
hunger; he 7s rejoicing in a satisfaction that is in its 
nature pure and full, and needs only to be made complete 
in measure. 

And now, suppose you go to him with difficulties ; you 
try to shake his confidence in the divinity of the Chris- 
tian scheme; you object to the mysteries it involves. 
You point to its hard sayings. You tell him of the 
uncertainties of human testimony; of the liability of his- 


138 . CHRISTIANITY AUTHENYU:CATED IN 


tory, and even of records to corruption; of antagonism 
between Christian doctrine and the teachings of reason 
and philosophy; of myths and allegories converted into 
narratives of facts, and so on to the end of all that you can 
urge; and what, when you have done? Can you destroy 
his consciousness ? Can you take from him the memory 
of the past, or change the reality of the present? Can 
you convince him that he never has experienced what he 
knows that he has experienced as well as he knows that 
he exists? Will anything constrain him to believe that 
He was not from heaven, whose word and Spirit have 
wrought with such heavenly energy upon himself? that 
that gospel is not from God which has had power to 
recover his poor wandering soul to holy life and happiness 
in God, and to fit it to serve and enjoy him even as the 
angels? No; none of all these things is it possible to do 
—in the case of one who has really had experience of the 
effect of the gospel heartily received. Just in proportion 
to the clearness and certainty of the experience, will be, 
in each particular case, the strength of the conviction that 
Jesus is indeed the Son of God, and that in him there is 
help and hope for all the sinful and the suffering who will 
take him as their Saviour. You may as well convince 
the recovering patient, that the balm which has soothed 
and healed his smarting wounds, is poison; as well per- 
suade a man who was famished, but has eaten and been 
nourished into strength again, that the food which has 
refreshed him and satisfied his appetite is innutritious 
and unwholesome, as bring the thoroughly experimental 
Christian to conciude that the gospel is not true. Itisin 


THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 139 


this way that we explain the fact—at which unbelief has 
sometimes sneered—that thousands have lived and died in 
a tranquil and unfaltering faith, who never read or heard 
a formal argument for the truth of their religion, and were 
almost wholly uninstructed in the historic proofs. Let it 
not be falsely said that they have been believers without 
evidence—mere dotards, who believed because they were 
. so taught. The furthest possible from this is true. They 
had the highest kind of evidence on which to rest their 
faith. Instead of raising questions about the gospel, they 
put it to the test. They actually tried its saving power, 
and found it mighty to restore their souls; and so they 
knew it to be divinely true. It was enough for them 
that it assuaged their inward anguish ; that it dried their 
tears of sorrow; that it gave them life, and power, and 
freedom, along with the peace of God that passeth under- 
standing; that it stripped death of its chief terrors, and 
enabled them to see, far over the dark waters, the shining 
gates and the serene abodes of heaven. They knew in 
whom they had believed. 

This, then, you will perceive, is the alternative which is 
presented to the mind of every person who has so entered 
into the spirit of Christianity as really to have felt its 
power; when the question of its truth is agitated, namely, 
to consent to bear the miseries and wants of which the 
sinful soul is conscious, unrelieved; or quietly to rest 
upon the truth of that which gives him the relief he 
needs, unto the end. Precisely in this way the matter 
presented itself to the disciples according to the text. 
Will ye also go: away? was the question asked to test 


140 CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN 


them. Lord, to whom shall we go? was the reply— 
Thou hast the words of eternal life. Nothing to be found 
all to be found zm Christ. Who 
would consent to turn away from blessedness when he 
has found it, or entertain the idea at all, that that which 
blesses him supremely is mere falsehood and deceit? A 


away from Christ 


_ wise man must answer in this manner: Ask me to go 
away from Christ and disbelieve his words! Go where ? 
I must demand. I cannot go to Paganism. Its systems, 
even the most ancient and refined of them, have become 
effete and dead, besides that they are grovelling and 
mean. I cannot go to Judaism. The vail of its temple 
has been rent, and it is only a body from which the spirit 
has departed. I cannot go to Atheism; ah, no, for it 
crushes the soul’s last hope and fills the universe with 
gloom. I cannot go to Deism; it offers nothing to relieve 
my conscience, or warm my soul with life. I cannot go 
even to philosophy, however plausibly and acutely she 
discourses; she will but freeze my heart amidst her cold 
abstractions, or leave me hopelessly bewildered in her laby- 
rinths to starve. JI cannot go to any creature, nor any 
finite thing; not even an angel could give me the relief I 
need, and my desires cry out for something as a good that 
is infinite and divine. Where, then—oh, tell me where I 
am to go, when I turn my back upon the gospel. In 
Christ I find just what I cannot do without—eternal life. 
Why should I let it go? How can I for an instant doubt 
that He is truth itself who brings me this great gift? He 
must be the true Saviour of the world who has delivered 
me from sin and wrath, has brought me into sympathy 


THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 141 


and peace with God, and has given me the beginnings of 
a full and satisfying blessedness. Ah, yes, thou in whom 
I have found salvation! I believe and am sure, that thou 
art that Christ the son of the living God! 

It is thus that our holy religion, the faith of Jesus 
Christ, authenticates itself to those who make a fair ex- 
periment of its power. It so meets the entire necessities 
of the sinful human soul, as to leave nothing more to be 
desired. Its efficacy is the absolute demonstration of its 
truth. 

It may then easily be seen where those who follow 
Christ may find the cause of their occasional misgivings— 
of the questionings and doubts, which, perhaps, in their 
darker hours, disturb them. If we, who are believers, are 
_ sometimes so disturbed ; if now and then the mists of 
uncertainty seem to gather in our spiritual horizon, one of 
two things, it is obvious, must be true. Hither the ex- 
perience which we have of the effects of the gospel on the 
soul is very small, or else we have not sufficiently 
attended to it and reflected on its import. No doubt, 
with far too many of us the first is the real truth. It is 
but very poorly that we have tested the power of Christ 
and of the gospel. We have not entered deeply and 
earnestly enough into the spirit of the vital and peculiar 
Christian truths. We have given too little time and 
thought to the right understanding of their application to 
ourselves. We have not studied Christ enough ; we have 
not listened to his words enough; and hence our Christian 
experience lacks depth, and definiteness, and certainty. If 
this be so, no wonder that the testimony which our ex- 


142 CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN 


perience gives, is faltering. It will only speak out with 
distinct, and firm, and decisive tones, :when our whole 
hearts are subjected to the influence of the gospel. 

But, it may be, that with some the other supposition is 
the true one. There may be some who have entered 


deeply into the spirit of Christ and the Christian doctrines, 


and yet have painful perplexities at times. Objections 
are urged, perhaps, on grounds of philosophy or history, 
which they do not know how to answer, and doubts 
of one sort and another are suggested, which though re- 
pelled disturb their peace, while it hardly occurs to them 
to look within them for the ground of an unfaltering con- 
fidence. . 

If such is the case of any of us who have believed, what 
we should do is plain. Instead of listening to vain cavils, 
or even to real difficulties, urged upon us, we have just to 
stop and seriously consider what has been wrought im us 
—what we ourselves have felt. We have followed Christ. 
We have gazed upon his glory. We have availed our- 
selves of his bleeding sacrifice and have come through 
him to God, and what has the effect been? What has 
this gospel done for ws ? Ah—now the light breaks on 
us. We see that nothing but God’s own truth can have 
wrought so mightily, so savingly in us ; and we plant our 
feet, as it were, anew upon the Rock of Ages, and feel it 
more than ever solid and secure. Let us see to it, 
that we have a thorough Christian experience, and 
that we use it to the honour of our Master, as we 
ought. 

Nor can we fail to detect the error involved in the plea 


THE.EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 143 


which many urge, that they cannot receive the gospel 
because they have some speculative objections which 
have not yet been answered. Men often seem to think 
that this plea is entirely valid ; and yet, if the view which 
we have taken be a just one, it is altogether futile. For 
we have seen that the easiest and the surest way to 
ascertain whether the gospel be divine, is actually to try 
it, for the restoration and the comfort of our souls. A 
sick man may have doubts about the power of the remedy 
which is prescribed. What, then, shall he stop and discuss 
it at all points? Then he may die before the discussion 
is gone through. No—he must take the remedy at once, 
and try its virtue ; and if he feels it easing his keen dis- 
tress—if he feels the genial glow of health returning 
through its influence—then his objections are all answered. 
It is precisely so in relation to the gospel. Shall a man 
who is ready to die under the burden of his guilt and 
misery, and who sees that the universe of creatures can 
give him no relief, refuse to make trial of Christ and of 
his word till he gets absolute demonstration at all points 
that Christianity is a divine provision? It ought to be 
enough that there is reasonable ground of hope that 
Christianity is true, O hesitating child of sin and suffering, 
to decide you to try its efficacy on you. Without it you 
are sure to sink under the weight of your iniquity into 
eternal-death. You have seen yourself what changes it 
has wrought in others. You have seen the wretched, 
when brought to receive it heartily, made to rejoice with 
a joy that words could not express. You have seen those 
who have believed transformed in their temper and their 


144 CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN 


lives, and made examples of purity and goodness. So far 
the experience of others is available, as proof, to you. It 
is weak, as well as infinitely hazardous, to delay a recep- 
tion of the gospel for the sake of resolving doubts, when 
the truth may be known with certainty by coming at once 
and placing your soul under the full impression of its 
power. 

Ah! you who have stood querying and lingering when 
you should have fairly and sincerely tried the way of life 
proposed in Jesus Christ, be persuaded to make the great 
experiment, while time and opportunity are granted. The 
witness of thousands and thousands who have made it, is 
given to the truth of the blessed gospel. Martyrs, from 
out the fires that have burned their bodies into ashes, 
have testified of its blessed fruits in them; and dying 
saints, many whom you yourselves have known and loved, 
who have built their hopes on Christ and his rich promises, 
have whispered with their pallid lips the words of a full 
assurance. They have declared, as they went down into 
the dark waters, that there was an end of all their fears ; 
and their last accents have been those of conscious victory 
_and joy. 

But what, on the contrary, has been the testimony, 
when testimony has been given, of those who have gone 
from Christ and from his gospel? It has been the ex- 
pression of bitter disappointment. They have found that 
all other trusts were vain. Just in the time of their 
greatest need, they have seen, with the deepest anguish, 
their reliances all failing them at once ; the foundations 
on which they had rested have dissolved beneath their 


~ 
_ a 


THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 145 


feet ; and their hopes of eternal life have perished. So 
shall it be with you, if you will follow in their footsteps. 
Come, then, with your sins and your necessities, and let 
it be to-day the language of your hearts, To whom, Lord, 
shall we go, if we turn away from thee? Thou hast the 
words of eternal life. We believe, and are sure. that thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God, 


146 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 


IX. 
Christranity a Religion of Facts. 


JOHN iii, 11: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do 
know, and testify that we have seen. 


HESE were the words of the great Author of Chris- 
tianity. He had just explained to Nicodemus the 
necessity of the new and spiritual birth in order to an 
admission into his kingdom. That master in Israel, not 
clearly understanding what he meant, or wishing to draw 
him into larger discourse on a topic of such interest, 
queried, as if doubtingly, as to the possibility of what he 
taught. This gave the divine Teacher occasion to protest, 
in the most emphatic manner, that in what he delivered 
to the world he spoke, not as uttering mere opinions, but 
as testifying to facts of which he had personal and perfect 
knowledge. It was precisely in this particular that he 
was so incomparably superior, as an instructor of man- 
kind, not only to the doctors of the Jewish synagogue, 
but to all the philosophers and moralists of the various 
Gentile schools. They discussed, reasoned, and conjec- 
tured. They dealt in subtle speculations, in nice distinc- 
tions, in ingenious inferences, in learned and elaborate 
research. In the end, however, they arrived at very few 
sure conclusions. It was no rare thing that they contra- 
dicted each other, perplexed themselves, and confounded 


CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 147 


their disciples. Ever learning, as they imagined, they 
were never able to come to the certain knowledge of the 
truth. 

It was widely different with Christ. Never man spake 
like this man—was the extorted confession of Jis ene- 
mies. In plain and simple language, and by the help of 
the most familiar illustrations, he set before men the great 
essential facts in regard to their moral condition, necessi- 
ties, and duties ; as the faithful and true witness, giving 
testimony to what he knew as certainties. Appealing to 
the mighty works which he publicly performed in proof 
of his divine commission, and declaring himself to be the 
Lord from heaven, he insisted that he spake what he did 
know, and testified what he had seen. There is no alter- 
native, therefore, but that we either reject him, in the face 
of all evidence, as an intentional and base impostor, or 
else admit, without the smallest qualification, the facts to 
which he gave such positive and always earnest witness, 

Christianity, then, the religion of Jesus Christ, is essen- 
tially a religion of facts. It is as an embodiment and 
presentation of facts positive and certain, that it is 
addressed to men, and that faith in it is demanded. On 
this view, as distinctly set forth in the words of Christ 
which have been quoted, I wish to insist in this discourse. 

First in order, it may be needful to illustrate somewhat 
the meaning of this statement ; and all the more because 
we apprehend that it may strike some persons, even of 
those who are most familiar with the Scriptures, strangely. 
A very considerable part of the New Testament is occu- 


pied with the statement and discussion of laws and prin- 
10 


148 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 


ciples, and with the specification and enforcement of 
particular moral duties; and hence it is doubtless true 
that many are wont to think of the Christian religion as a 
system of difficult and abstruse truths, exceedingly nume- 
rous and complicated, and many of them, at least, even 
beyond the comprehension of ordinary minds. This im- 
pression, however, is at once widely at variance with the 
truth, and most pernicious in its influence. It produces 
often a feeling of discouragement in thoughtful minds, a 
despair of ever being able to receive the gospel in an in- 
telligible manner, and of course an aversion to the study 
of the Scriptures. 

It is, indeed, to be readily admitted that there are in 
the New Testament elaborate, profound, and even in some 
degree obscure discussions, together with a large amount 
of purely ethical instruction. But it will be seen, if the 
matter be considered, that this is by no means inconsist- 
ent with the statement that Christianity is, as to its sub- 
stance, distinctively a religion of facts. - For the facts 
themselves, that constitute the pith and moment of the 
system, may be few and simple and easy of apprehension ; 
while their relations to each other, to universal truth, and 
to the practical purposes of life, may afford a wide field 
for inquiry and discussion. It may be true, it is true, we 
affirm, that the rich doctrinal and ethical discourses which 
form so large a part of the writings of the apostles, do 
find their premises in certain cardinal facts which may be 
very distinctly stated and very clearly understood. Take 
away these facts and the whole system falls and comes to 
nothing. In them, therefore, the essence of Christianity 


CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 149 


does lie ; and when we say that it is essentially a religion 
of facts, we mean to assert that the facts referred to form, 
so to speak, the staple material, the substance of which it 
is composed, the ground of its discussions and practical 
appeals. Assuming some facts as revealed in nature, and 
discoverable by reason, or written on the heart, it connects 
with these others before unknown, and many of them be- 
yond the reach of the highest human wisdom. These 
disclosures of facts unknown, revelations in the strictest 
sense, are the grand distinction of the Christian Scriptures. 
It is to these that the Bible, as a whole, owes its peculiar 
and inestimable value. Their certainty rests on no human 
discovery, no logical deduction, no insight of reason ; but 
is established by the direct and explicit testimony of God 
himself, the God of infinite knowledge and absolute 
veracity. 

Here, then, as a second step, we come to the inquiry— 
What are these facts the assertion of which, with divine 
authority, is the-distinguishing peculiarity of the Christian 
religion? We ought to be able to set them definitely 
before us. 

Assuming as manifest to reason, and strongly re-assert- 
ing the existence, personality, and infinity of God, Chris- 
tianity declares, as facts, the following things :— 

It teaches, as a fact, that God exists eternally as Father, 
Word, and Spirit ; or that there is a trinity in the unity 
of the Godhead. 

It teaches, as a fact, that God administers a perfect and 
universal government over the worlds of matter and of 


mind ; a government of natural and moral law. 


150 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 


It teaches, as a fact, that, in the universe of mind, 
benevolent love is the grand harmonizing force, the legiti- 
mate result of which is perfection of ‘character and state, 
or holiness and happiness, in other words ; and that sel- 
fishness is the great antagonistic and disturbing force, the 
legitimate result of which is imperfection of character and 
state, or sin and misery. 

It teaches, as a fact, that the whole human race is 
naturally in a state of moral ruin ; having fallen entirely 
from the state of benevolent love, and into the state of 
reigning selfishness, and so from happiness to misery as 
their inevitable ultimate condition, unless deliverance come 
from without themselves. 

It teaches, as a fact, that Jesus of Nazareth was God 
incarnate, the Word made flesh ; and that in his sufferings 
and death an atonement was made for human sin, which 
has rendered the exercise of mercy towards repenting sin- 
hers consistent with the sense of right in God and man, 
and with general justice and good government. 

It teaches, as a fact, that Christ rose from the dead, 
and ascended into heaven, where he now lives and reigns 
as Head of the Christian economy. 

It teaches, as a fact, that the Holy Spirit of God is sent 
to make an effectual application of the atonement, by the 
renewing and sanctification of those who shall be saved. 

It teaches, as a fact, that the resurrection of Christ was 
a type and pledge of the resurrection of all mankind, and 
that this sublime event stands immediately connected 
with a general judgment and eternal retributions of cee 
ness or misery. 


CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 151 


It teaches, finally, as a fact, that the gospel is ulti- 
mately to reach the whole world with its benefits, and to 
elevate and bless the entire race on earth in a very high 
degree. 

There are many minor facts which are either neces- 
sarily involved in these, or more or less remotely connected 
with them. But these appear to be the leading cardinal 
facts to which Christianity gives authoritative witness, and 
which are the foundation and the substance of what is 
peculiar in the system. Considering how vast the reach 
and moment of the scheme, they are wonderfully few and 
simple. They are stated with great distinctness, may be 
clearly understood, and readily remembered. They are 
mere facts, affirmed in plain statements of what actually 
is. They are not problems submitted to reason for solu- 
tion. They are not dogmas as they are sometimes a little 
contemptuously called. There has been, no doubt, an 
abundance of dogmatism in the discussions held as to the 
significance and the relations of these facts; and many 
dogmas of human origin, miserable and worthless, have 
sometimes been connected with them in the multifarious 
discussions of the schools. But we should always care- 
fully discriminate between the clearly stated facts of 
divine revelation and all the reasonings and philosophies 
about them. The former will remain unchanged though 
the latter be scattered to the winds. 

In nature, we well know, there are certain facts which 
are obvious and not to be disputed; such as relate, for 
example, to attraction, light, heat, organization, animal 
and vegetable life, and a thousand other things. These 


152 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. ae 


facts are the essential things in the natural world; the 
basis of all true knowledge, and of all sound philosophy 
in reference to such matters. They lie at the foundation 
of all reasoning and judgment in the practical affairs of 
life, and are the ground of all wise action. They are the 
realities of nature. 
Just so the facts to which we have alluded as being 
anthoritatively taught in the Christian system, are the 
realities of the moral and spiritual world; some of them 
partially discoverable by reason, all of them known per- 
fectly by God, and by him explicitly revealed. We speak 
that we do know, says Christ, and testify that we have 
seen. By the testimony of the senses we learn the 
facts of the material universe. By the testimony of God 
himself we learn the facts of the spiritual and moral 
universe. 

The latter are not less certain than the former; nor is 
the knowledge of them less necessary to the real welfare 
of mankind. Those persons who, with an air of superior 
wisdom, decry the Christian doctrines, that is to say, the 
great facts of Christianity, as of very little consequence as 
regards a Christian life, exhibit precisely the same stupid- 
ity as if they should assert that, as regards our natural life, 
the facts and laws of nature are of little or no import- 
ance. Were it not so common an occurrence, it would 
seem incredible that any intelligent person could give 
utterance to so shallow and absurd a sentiment. 

It is, in truth, only when Christianity is regarded as an 
authoritative setting forth of the most material facts in the 
moral world, that its admirable adaptation to the wants of 


ae a 


CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 183 


all mankind can be appreciated fully. Let this be care- 
fully considered. No system of abstruse doctrines, of 
subtle and nicely elaborated philosophy, or of truths 
recondite in their nature, or resting on proofs remote and 
difficult of apprehension, could ever be applicable to men 
of all conditions throughout the world. Views and 
opinions which one individual, or one people, might be 
able to understand and to receive, might be entirely un- 
suited to the genius, the culture, or the capabilities of 
another. There are such wide diversities among man- 
kind in these respects, that to human wisdom, the idea of 
giving a religious system which should be equally adapted 
to the barbarous and the civilized, the ignorant and the 
learned, the weak in intellect and the strong in intellect, 
would probably have seemed, beforehand, entirely im- 
practicable, if not absurd. 

But God is wiser than men. It is one of the decisive 
marks of its divine origin which the Christian religion 
carries with it, that it is a complete realization of this very 
idea of availability for all. Wonderful as it is in the 
grandeur and interest of its disclosures, vast as are the 
regions of thought which it opens or suggests, and mighty 
as its influence is seen to be wherever it is heartily re- 
ceived, a few distinctly stated facts, as we have seen, make 
up the sum and substance of what is peculiar to the 
system. But simple facts all men can apprehend and 
feel, if not with the same facility, and to. precisely the 
same extent, yet so as to experience their practical effects 
on the character and life. It has been found by actual 
experiment that the Hottentot, the Greenlander, the 


154 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 


Esquimaux, and the savage dweller in the islands of the 
sea, not less than the most intellectual and polished people 
of the world, accept the religion of the cross, exemplify its 
power to elevate and bless, and living and dying enjoy its 
plessel consoiations. Its facts in regard to God and pro- 
vidence, to sin, the Saviour, the future life and the retri- 
butions of eternity, and others allied to these, when taken 
as they stand in the Holy Scriptures, aside from human 
reasonings, in their true simplicity and naked force, gain 
easy access to the mind when once it is drawn to give 
them a serious attention. No great enlargement of the 
intellect, no high degree of learning, nor any peculiarity of 
culture is required for their reception. As the whole race. 
notwithstanding all diversities, have certain great wants 
in common, so it is found that to meet and satisfy these 
wants, the facts of the Christian revelation, to which He 
who spake what he did know has testified, have a common 
applicability. They avail for all alike. Christianity is, in 
this view, admirably fitted to become the religion of the 
world. 

Since, then, Christianity, as a divine religion, is funda- 
mentally a revelation of the great moral and spiritual 
facts to which we have referred—facts by which especially 
it is fitted to reach the whole human race—a third 
inquiry will naturally suggest itself. How ought such a 
religious system to be treated? In what state of mind 
should we approach it? How give it its best practical 
effect ? 

On this point we may first observe that its clearly 
stated facts are always and distinctly to be recognised as 


CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 155 


such. It is for want of attention to this obvious dictate 
of sound reason, that many who seem to be sincere in- 
quirers are tossed perpetually on the restless sea of 
doubt. They confound known facts with speculative 
conjectures and opinions. Instead cf seizing and holding 
what is certain they forget that any thing is certain. 
They suffer themselves to be drawn away from what is 
tangible and real into the shadowy realm of the unknown, 
and so are led to waste their time and strength, their 
thought and feeling, in raising and discussing questions 
which end in nothing after all. The plain facts which 
Christianity embodies and affirms are not now to be de- 
bated. They rest already on the highest possible 
evidence, and no longer require to be established. We 
may profitably, we must, to some extent, inquire into 
the relation and the bearings of these facts; but unless we 
are willing to involve ourselves in hopeless difficulties, we 
are to accept them as the well determined realities which 
they actually are. 

Suppose a man, in a spirit of captious scepticism, re- 
fuses to admit the obvious facts of nature, which are 
every day before his eyes; and as some misnamed philo- 
sophers have done, sets himself to doubt the testimony of 
his senses, and, as it were, to tear up the very foundations 
of all knowledge. At what results would he be likely to 
arrive? You would expect to see him every moment 
more and more entangled and bewildered, and would 
hardly count him worthy to be reckoned in the number of 
sane men. ‘To spend one’s time in making it a question 
whether the sun shines, or the grass grows, or bodies 


> 


156 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 


attract each other, or in trying to raise doubts about any 
other well-known facts in nature, you would certainly re- 
gard as a proof of anything but a sound condition of the 
intellect 

Just so it is in regard to the main facts of Christianity 
—facts which the Son of God appeared on earth to settle 
finally. Not toassume them as settled, in all our thoughts 
and reasonings, is to fall into the folly of doubting cer- 
tainties, ascertained and known to be such. Whether our 
race be in a fallen state, whether the justice of God con- 
demns us, whether Christ has made atonement for our 
sins, whether eternal life or death is suspended on our re- 
pentance and faith in him, whether Christ has risen, and 
whether we shall rise to be acquitted or condemned at the 
bar of a final judgment—are things no more to be debated 
as if questionable now, than whether a stone will fall to 
the earth if it be thrown into the air. That they are 
questioned and debated still by many, is no proof that 
they are not established facts; it proves simply that those 
who wiil not accept them as such are so far blinded and 
misled through prejudice, or the want of information, that 
they have no right discernment in the matter. Quite re- 
cently a man announced, over his own name, in the public 
papers, that the received system of astronomy was alto- 
gether false, and that he was prepared to show this to the 
satisfaction of all who would give him their attention, 
What then? The public, instead of being led to doubt 
whether the swn were the centre of the solar system, were 
rather led to conclude at once that the man had lost his 
wits. So they who at this day seek to bring into doubt 


GHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 157 


the facts which Christianity unambiguously sets forth, do 
most of all bring into doubt their own intellectual sobriety 
and force. Since the Christian revelation was, at the 
outset, proved to be divine, and has stood impregnable 
against the assaults of persecuting power, of wit and 
ridicule, of learning, criticism, and philosophy, its clearly 
stated facts are justly to be taken as verities for ever 
settled beyond rational debate; and all systems, all 
theories, all speculations, and all pretended facts, which 
are really incompatible with these, may be at once re- 
jected. Nor is there anything of dogmatism or bigotry 
in this. It is simply refusing to surrender what we know 
to the unreasonable demands of ignorance and perverse- 
ness 

It may be added further, secondly, that as a religion of 
facts, Christianity must be regarded as immutable in its 
essence, and must be accepted precisely as it is. It has 
been by no means an uncommon thing to see men, not 
avowing unbelief, commit the folly of undertaking to cor- 
rect and modify the Christian revelation ; endeavouring to 
prevent its saying something which it explicitly affirms, or 
to constrain it to say something which, in truth, it nowhere 
teaches. Such persons not rarely delude themselves and 
others. They work out monstrous compounds of truth 
and error mingled in various proportions—a few grains 
perhaps, of the divine to many grains of the purely human, 
—and fancy themselves improvers of Christianity, and 
wiser than its Author. 

But what is the result? With all their ingenuity and 
pains, they cannot alter the facts which Christianity 


158 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 


makes known. What earnest and persevering efforts have 
been made through centuries, by those who have flattered 
themselves that they were profound thinkers and philoso- 
phers, to make the Christian system different in some- 
thing from what it really is! How vast the amount of 
time and labour expended in this manner, and all how 
utterly in vain! The same great facts remain to which 
the divine teacher testified when he spake what he posi- 
tively knew and bear witness to what he had actually 
seen ; and so they will remain for ever! They are like 
old, grey rocky mountains, which stand unharmed through 
the beating storms of ages. The cunning inventions of 
human wisdom, opinions and philosophies in perpetual 
succession, encounter them, as clouds encounter the hoary 
cliffs, only to be themselves dissolved and scattered to the 
winds, and to leave them just what they were before. 
You may try,O men of speculation, to change, in the 
natural world, the fact of magnetic attraction or of the 
gravitating force; but the body will still fall and the 
needle will still be steady to the pole. Even so when you 
shall have done your utmost to change the essential facts 
of the Christian revelation, you will leave them as you 
find them—the unalterable realities of the moral universe 
of God. It is a noble characteristic of our divine religion 
that as to its substance and ground, it is immutable and 
permanent. It must be accepted as it is, or rejected alto- 
gether. The attempt to modify it is forbidden by sound 
reason and sound piety alike. 

Still further, thirdly, it is plain that in order to give 
Christianity its proper influence and power upon the 


r 
— i, 2° a >" - 


CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 159 


world, its distinctive facts must be continually insisted 
on. There are two opposite errors which have at times 
prevailed in relation to this matter. It has sometimes 
been the case that the Christian ministry and Church 
have fallen into a scholastic and speculative habit. They 
have at least seemed to regard the facts of revealed 
religion, not so much in their practical applications in 
their bearing on the character and welfare, the hopes and 
destinies of men, as in the light of interesting objects of 
thought and study, to be arranged, and classified, and con- 
structed into systems, as specimens of birds or minerals 
are studied, prepared and labelled, and set in the cases of 
a cabinet. Treated in such a manner, the solemn, stirring, 
and vital facts, or doctrines as they are quite as often 
called, of the Christian faith, become indeed mere dogmas, 
in the offensive meaning of the term—dry, abstract, and 
comparatively inoperative dogmas. They lose their power 
to stimulate and rouse the soul, and do but little more 
than entertain the understanding. From such an ex- 
hibition of Christianity but little life or motion will be 
likely to result. 

But one extreme is apt to beget another. Reacting 
from this excessively and drily dogmatic form of Chris- 
tian teaching, there are some who would have little or 
nothing definitely said about the essential facts of revela- 
tion. They wish to have the teachers of religion leave 
off insisting on the fact of human guilt, the fact of a 
redemption by the cross, the fact of a needed spiritual 
renovation, and so on to the end; and they would have 
them give themselves almost entirely to the inculcation of 


160 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 


what is purely ethical—to the work of exhorting men to 
the outward duties which Christianity imposes. Instead 
of labouring to have the system intelligently comprehended. 
and felt in its full energy within the soul, there to become 
a source and fountain of right action of ail sorts, they 
think it better to insist aimost exclusively on action, and 
to leave the gaining of right knowledge and the kindling 
of right feeling in the soul—which things alone give moral 
power—to be accomplished as they may. 

It is hard, perhaps, to say which of these errors is the 
worse. The one converts what should be quick and 
powerful into something nearly or quite inert and useless. 
The other changes what should be spiritual, earnest, and 
profound, into something which is chiefly formal and out- 
ward, a heartless and superficial semblance of zeal for 
what is good, and not the thing itself. Give over insist- 
ing on the great facts which the New Testament asserts, 
and confine yourself to the teaching of mere ethics, and in 
a single generation Christianity ceases to be known in its 
peculiar features. Let such a course be universal, and it 
must soon become extinct. It is the constant reiteration 
of the momentous facts of the holy gospel, the clear and 
forcible exhibition of them in their certainty and their 
vast solemnity and interest, that causes them to become 
inwrought into the minds of those who hear them, and 
especially of the young, who in fresh crowds are all the 
while advancing into life. Itis in this way that Christian 
knowledge as related to character and life is perpetuated 
and made effectual to its end. 

In order, therefore, to the progress of Christianity and 


CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 161 


to the right application of it for the saving of men’s souls 
and the curing of the evils that afflict a sinful world, its 
facts must be forcibly presented and pressed on the atten- 
tion of all who can be reached, There must be special 
care to exhibit them in their own simplicity, in their 
direct relation to practicl duty of all kinds, in a word, in 
their bearing on the actual condition and necessities of 
men. When so set forth and urged, the facts of our re- 
ligion, or doctrines as they are with equal fitness called, 
exert a mighty power upon hearts prepared by the divine 
spirit to receive them. They furnish to each individual 
soul the reasons, grounds, and motives of right action—the 
impulses which prompt it to strive with all earnestness to 
meet the demands of duty, and to do good to the extent 
of its ability. 

It only remains to be added, that since Christianity is 
a religion of facts, of positive realities, the obligation of 
every individual heartily and practically to receive it, must 
be allowed to be imperative and not to be escaped. No 
one in his senses can hesitate to acknowledge that he is 
bound to act in accordance with the great facts of the 
natural world, in the ordering of his natural life ; and 
that he must expect to suffer, and will deserve to suffer, 
the greatest calamities if foolishly he should refuse to do 
so. How then can it be doubted, that I, that you, and 
others, are bound to act in accordance with the great facts 
of the spiritual world in the ordering of our spiritual life; 
and that to refuse to do it is to involve ourselves in 
miseries beyond endurance. It often seems as if those 


who hear the gospel, and in a general sense admit its 


J€@2 CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 


claims, were resting after all in the false idea that Chris: 
tiauity is very much a religion of opinions, and that it 
cannot be very material whether they personally adopt 
these opinions or neglect them. They feel, apparently, 
that they are at liberty to think and act very much as it 
may suit them in regard to the disclosures of divine reve- 
lation, provided they do not directly array themselves 
against them. 

No, no; this is a great and dangerous delusion. 
God, the soul, guilt, redemption, the resurrection from 
death, and eternal joy or woe—these are, as we have seen, 
facts positively determined by Christianity—by the gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ as found in the New Testament. 
Suppose you refuse them your assent, or even your par- 
ticular attention; suppose in your heedlessness you quite 
forget them ;—it is all the same. You will find them 
realities at last. Suppose you admit, and really believe 
them intellectually, and only disregard them practically, 
perhaps with a serious purpose to regard them soon or 


late. It will still remain that they are facts—facts touch- _ 


ing your duty and your happiness at every point. You 
may live and die neglecting them, and go at last, as ruined 
souls, to a lost eternity ; but they will be facts for ever ! 
It will for ever be true that they had such relation to all 
the interests of your being, that you were bound, by the 
highest conceivable obligations, to heed them in the 
moulding of your characters and the shaping of your 
ends. 

Remember this, I pray you—that in this divine religion, 
which, in the name of God, is pressed on your attention, 


ee sa a ee ee ae ee ee 


ee 


oe) 


CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 163 


you have to do with facts from which there is no éscape. 
Admit them, act as they demand, build on them, as on an 
adamantine basis, the structure of your character and 
hopes, and it shall be to the exaltation, peace, and glory 
of the immortal future that awaits you. Pursue an oppo- 
site course, and you will surely verify at last, in your own 
melancholy experience, the fearful words of Christ: 
“Whosoever falleth on this stone shall be broken; but on 
whomsoever i shall fall it shall grind him to powder /” 


164 MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 


ie 
aMostery ro Obstacle to Faith. 


1 Cor. ii. 7: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. 


lesa human being at his birth has everything to 

learn. We bring into being with us the faculties 
which fit us to become intelligent,—a mental constitution 
from which perceptions, intellectual processes and ideas, 
in proper time and by the natural course of things, result. 
As we are brought in contact with external objects, the 
mind is awakened into consciousness ; its elementary laws 
of thought reveal themselves; and thenceforward it goes 
on, more or less rapidly, in the acquisition of positive 
knowledge. 

The child, when the sense of his own ignorance and a 
desire to learn have been awakened in his heart, is apt to 
imagine that those who are older than himself, and whom 
he has found able to answer his first inquiries, know 
almost everything. He believes that when he too shall 
become a man, he shall, in like manner, clearly compre- 
hend those things at which now he can only wonder. As 
he advances to maturer years, thetefore, and new subjects 
of interest continually present themselves, he goes on 
asking others to explain; and he is surprised and disap- 
pointed when he finds, in many instances, that no sufficient 


MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. —‘165 


explanation, and no solution of his difficulties, can be 
given. He finds it hard to relinquish the idea of having 
everything made entirely plain to his understanding; and 
under the influence of this reluctance, he is inclined to 
doubt or disbelieve whatever is inexplicable—whatever, in 
other words, offers itself as a mystery to his mind. 

In this vulnerable point, scepticism in reference to sub- 
jects of a religious nature is wont to assail the mind. It 
exaggerates the mysteriousness of the facts and doctrines 
of religion—of revealed religion more especially—and 
affects to regard it as something strange that these should 
be attended with difficulties, and should some of them 
seem so much beyond the reach of the natural under- 
standing. It would have it believed that obscurity— 
mystery—is something peculzar to religion, and not to be 
found in other departments of our knowledge, and then 
insists that what is so incomprehensible cannot. rationally 
be believed. By this specious, but unsound and fallacious 
style of argument, the faith of many has, without doubt, 
been overthrown. 

We say that the argument against revealed religion 
drawn from the mysteries involved in some of its truths, 
is not valid. It is neither true, as it assumes, that niystery 
pertains only, or at least pre-eminently, to matters of reli- 
gion; nor that nothing that includes impenetrable mysteries 
can be entitled to belief. We purpose, on the contrary, 
now to show that mystery pertains to all other things 
which we believe as truly as to the doctrines of divine 
revelation; and that if we cannot receive anything mys- 
terious as truth, then we cannot receive as truth anything 


166 MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 


at all. One course of argument and illustration will 
establish both these points. 

That there are unfathomable mysteries involved in re- 
vealed religion is readily conceded. The apostle boldly 
avows it in the text : “We speak,” says he, “the wisdom of 
God in a mystery.” The being of God, the foundation of 
all religion, is itself a mystery. We can form no conception 
of his essence. The mind sinks exhausted in the effort to 
take in the eternity of his duration, or the infinity of his 
power. His self-existence is an abyss that swallows up 
our thoughts. When in our efforts to conceive him as he 
is, we have combined our highest notions of wisdom, of 
power, of justice, of goodness, and of the morally beautiful 
and sublime, we have fallen as far below the great reality, 
as does the infant when pleased with the splendour of the 
sun, of a just comprehension of the mechanism of the 
universe. The providence of God, which revelation repre- 
sents as universal, is a mystery. That he should sustain 
the universe and fill it with his presence, at every moment 
bringing myriads of creatures into being, displaying every- 
where the most admirable workmanship, controlling all 
things by his will, never reposing for an instant in the 
midst of his infinite affairs, and yet fainting not, neither 
becoming weary—all this it is utterly impossible for us 
with finite powers to comprehend. The system of re- 
demption, through which, according to the gospel, God 
offers eternal life to sinful men, dating its origin in the 
deep counsels of eternity, unfolding the divine mercy in 
1ts immeasureable riches, involving the wonderful fact of 
the incarnation of the Word and the mission and inscrut- 


MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 167 


able ministry of the Spirit, is equally a mystery acknow- 
ledged. So is the truth of the trinity in the unity of God. 
So is spiritual existence, and the resurrection of the body 
to immortal life. All these, and many other truths which 
are essential parts in the scheme of revealed religion, are 
confessedly mysterious. But when the plea is urged that 
they are in this respect peculiar, and that it is unreasonable 
and extraordinary that we should be required to believe 
things so mysterious in themselves, or their relations, we 
at once join issue on the point and deny that there is 
anything peculiar in the case, or anything contrary to 
reason in the requirement; and we assert, on the contrary, 
as already stated, that there is in fact mystery in every- 
thing, and that this proves, in a multitude of cases, no 
obstacle at all to the most firm belief. 

Let us look at a few facts. Of nothing can we feel a 
greater certainty than of our own being and personal 
identity. No imaginable evidence can add to the strength 
of my conviction that I exist, and that I am the same 
individual being that I was twenty years ago. But what 
am I? JI can no more understand the essence of my con- 
scious self, than I can that of God the Infinite Spirit. 
The intellectual activities— 


“These thoughts that wander through Eternity "— 


that flash with a speed that outstrips the lightning across 
the universe, that travel from world to world, and ascend 
from the insect to the Deity without effort or fatigue,— 
what know I of their nature? Or where is he that can 
resolve my doubts and tell me what they are? These 


168 MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 


sensibilities that make me capable of so many and such 
various affections by contact with things without me, 
capable of being moved to admiration by the view of 
beauty, to awe at the sight of the sublime, to love in the 
contemplation of the pure and good; what can I tell, or 
what can I learn of their hidden constitution? The 
philosopher here is no wiser than the child. That won- 
derful faculty, the will, by what means can I draw aside 
the veil that conceals its operations? It acts unseen 
within me as the helmsman of my destiny, turning me 
hither and thither, and commanding every power by its 
simple act of choice. The material body, in all its members 
and nearly all its functions, obeys its secret energy. It is 
the attribute, finally, which makes me moral and responsible. 
Yet I know as much of the structure of the furthest world 
in space as I know of its essential nature. My own being 
is a mystery. 

Then, further, as to my personal identity—what is it 
precisely that constitutes me the same individual that I 
was at any moment past? My body is not composed of 
the same matter; perhaps not one of the same particles 
are in it now which at some former period it contained. 
Yet it is the same body-and not another. My mind, too, 
has been perpetually passing through changes of thought, 
feeling, and affection. Its opinions, tastes, desires, are 
widely different from what they were in other years. Yet 
after all, it is the same and not another mind. Its thread 
of conscious identity has not been broken and never will 
ve broken. How inscrutable a mystery is this! 

Turn then, if you please, to nature in any of her various 


MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 169 


departments. Look, for instance, at the facts presented in 
the animal kingdom —_ Explain, if you can, the nature of 
that something to which you have given the name of in- 
stinct. Observe that spider, which has spread her gossa- 
mer across your window. How did she learn to construct 
that octagon, as perfect as if drawn by the nicest geome- 
trician? Or watch the robin that has fixed her nest on 
the tree that shades your door. That nest is the first she 
ever built ; yet see how perfect—the most practised of her 
kind has never formed a better. Where did she gain her 
skill in architecture? Note too with what self-denying 
_ perseverance she sits upon her eggs ; it is her first time of 
incubation. How came she to know that such an act was 
necessary, and that her long patience will be at length re- 
warded ? 

Consider also animal life itself, and the functions of the 
vital economy. What is it that prevents the decomposi- 
tion of the flesh of animals so long as the vital principle 
is there, while decay commences the moment it is gone ? 
Lay open the mode of the assimilating process, and tell us 
how it is that the gross substances taken in the form of 
food are converted into the beautiful carnation of the 
human cheek, and the gorgeous and variegated dyes of 
birds and insects. Show what it is that keeps the heart 
for ever throbbing, and the lungs perpetually heaving, with- 
out any effort of the will. Solve the long doubts of the 
philosophers, and tell us what is the condition of the mind 
in sleep, and of what stuff dreams are made. You encounter 
mystery at every step. 

Or look again at the vegetable world. There is the rose 


170 MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 


blushing crimson by your window. What elements have 
been concerned in its production? Light, heat, moisture, 
and the common earth. But by what means have the soft 
and tender petal, the exquisitely grateful odour, and the 
hues unrivalled in their loveliness, been elaborated from 
such materials? How has the same sap been made to 
produce the hard stalk, the sharp thorn, the green leaf, 


and the admirable flower ? There, too, is the lily by its side. 


It springs from the same soil, is warmed by the same sun, 
watered by the same showers, yet instead of having the 
same colour it is white as the virgin snow. Again, there 
is the grass and the violet that both spring from one com- 
mon mould, and yet, one is a soft and lively green, and the 
other an imperial purple. Once more, you have a seed. 
It is only a mite in size, but just visible to the unassisted 
eye, and might easily be mistaken for a particle of dust. 
Yet, in it lies concealed the germ of a noble plant ; and let 
it be cast into the earth, and it will send forth life and 
beauty from its own decay, and thus will perpetuate its 
kind. How unsearchable are all these mysteries ! 

If now from organized we pass to inorganic matter, the 
same combination of the known with the unknown meets 
us. You have here the laws of chemical affinity and repul- 
sion. You find that certain substances when reduced to 
a fluid state and then placed in given conditions, return 
to solids by the process of crystallization; and that in doing 
this one always takes the cubic form, another always that 
of an octahedron, another always that of a parallelopiped, 
and so on. But of these, and a multitude of other plain 
and unquestionable facts, you cannot by the nicest obser- 


MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. ri 


vation detect the cause, or the mode of its operation. 
Nature veils it in deep mystery. 

Lastly, not to prolong our illustration, think of those 
subtle yet efficient agents that produce the more general 
and grand phenomena of nature. Put an end to the conjec- 
tures of mankind, by telling us what light, and heat, and 
electricity, and magnetism are. That mighty universal 
force, to which, by way of concealing our ignorance, we 
give the name of gravity ; which brings the pebble to the 
earth, and chain revolving worlds about their centres ; 
search out the secret and instruct us in relation to its 
nature. You cannot answer our inquiries. These are 
nature’s hidden things. She wraps them in mystery into 
which you pry in vain. 

You see, then, that mystery is written all over the uni- 
verse of God. You cannot turn where it is not. You 
find it in yourself, you perceive it in every creature that 
hath breath. You see it in every blade of grass, and every 
flower that beautifies the earth ; in every gem that comes 
from the productive mine ; in the radiance of the sun, the 
gleam of the lightning, in the needle steady to the pole, in 
the alternations of day and night, the changing of the sea- 
sons, and the mechanism of the heavens. There is nothing 
so familiar, nothing even so trifling around you, that it 
may not suggest a variety of questions which it is beyond 
your power to answer. 

It is, therefore, manifestly true that we do in reality 
believe a multitude of facts on the testimony of our 
senses, and on other evidence, in which the deepest mys- 
teries are obviously invelved ; thus showing, undeniably 


172 MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 


that mysteries present no obstacle to the belief of facts or 
truths supported by a reasonable amount of proof ; or, 
which is saying the same thing, that the certainty of what 
we know, is not in the least diminished by the uncertainty 
which may exist in regard to the relations of our know- 
ledge. 

Having thus shown the groundlessness of the allegation 
of the sceptic that things involving mystery are not to be 
believed, we will now go further still. We will take the 
full benefit of the argument, by turning the fact that many 
of the truths of revealed religion are confessedly mysterious, 
to the confirmation of its divinity. We say, then, that if 
a system of religion were presented, which professed to be 
from God, and yet did claim to have no mysteries, this 
claim itself should prove the system to be false. For such 
a system would be exceptional and anomalous in our ex- 
perience ; and we should justly reason that if earthly 
things are found: to be beyond our comprehension, much 
more ought heavenly things to be expected to be so ; that 
if there are mysteries in ourselves and in all the animal 
creation, in every blade of grass and every flower, in the 
pebbles beneath our feet, in the clouds above our heads, 
and in the laws that govern matter ; much more ought we 
to look for them in God, in his vast plan of moral govern- 
ment, in his eternal providence, in the spiritual relations 
of the human soul, in the means of its recovery from sin, 
and the determination of its character and destinies for 
the immortality that lies on the other side of death. 
When, therefore, the truly enlarged and discerning mind 
finds that revealed religion, instead of making loud pre- 


MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 173 


tensions to simplicity, and claiming to make the infinite 
perfectly intelligible to the finite, exhibits the grand facts 
and doctrines of which it treats in the sublimity of their 
real light and shade, explaining what we have need to 
know and are now capable of knowing, and leaving other 
things enwrapped in darkness ; it sees, in this, at once, the 
evidence of honesty and truth, and a conformity to the 
familiar system of material nature. To such a mind, the 
mysteries of religion, so far from being obstacles, are posi- 
tive aids to faith. To the Omniscient only are there no 
dark and hidden things. A mystery, let it be borne in 
mind, is not an absurdity—a something at which reason 
itself revolts—it is simply something not yet understood. 
Since our capacities are limited, and our power of com- 
prehending the spiritual is particularly feeble, it is, in the 
nature of the case, impossible, that even by any conceiv- 
able revelations, God should bring down to the level of 
our minds all those truths that lie embosomed in the invi- 
sible, the infinite, and the eternal. The whole scheme of 
revealed religion to him is wisdom, though to us it is 
delivered, of necessity, in a mystery. 

We would not, indeed, assert that God has actually gone 
to the utmost limit of the possible, in giving a revelation. 
There is no reason to suppose that he has done this in 
relation to all subjects, while we may well believe that he 
has with respect to some. There may be many other rea- 
sons, it is plain, besides that of our want of capacity to 
comprehend him, to render it fit that he should withhold 
from us many kinds and degrees of knowledge which 
might without difficulty be imparted. Of such reasons 


174 MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 


there are some that readily suggest themselves. It might, 
for example, instead of relieving, only bewilder and per- 
plex us, to have our minds excited to yet higher inquiry 
by further disclosures as to things that have no imme- 
diate relation to our duty or our happiness for the present. 
Life is so short, so full of engrossing occupation, we are 
under the necessity of devoting so much of it to what is 
directly practical, that very little time is allowed us for 
merely speculative thought. To open too many vistas to 
our minds, too many and tvo distant glimpses out into the 
great universe of things, might only divert our attention 
from matters of pressing moment, or make these seem to 
us to be trivial and irksome. Then, further, it is no less 
obvious that this living in the midst of mysteries may 
prove a most salutary moral discipline. By contact with 
the as yet unopened secrets of the universe, our pride 
receives a salutary check. We find that with all our aspira- 
tions and our conscious power of intellect and will, we 
cannot pass beyond a certain boundary which God has 
fixed. We are taught to recognise the unimaginable 
grandeur and gloy of that great Being to whose all-em- 
bracing mind ana wil-discerning vision nothing is in any 
respect obscure. All this is eminently favourable to a 
right estimate of ourselves and to a just view of our posi- 
tion. The lesson of our ignorance and of the imperfection 
of our highest faculties as instruments of knowledge, 
enforced as itis perpetually by the facts of our experience, 
is well adapted to repress conceit and to beget a reverential 
spirit. Both as regards the ends of practical life and the 
development in our souls of sentiments of humility, of 


MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 175 


veneration, and of worship, there are great advantages to 
be derived from the present withholding of many parts of 
divine knowledge which might possibly be revealed. 
Instead of being impeached, therefore, because of mys- 
teries which might have been made clear, the wisdom and 
goodness of God find in these very mysteries an impres- 
sive illustration. Instead of being an objection to a reve- 
lation that claims to be from him, that many of its lines 
of truth run off into the infinite unknown, we ought to 
recognise in this fact one of the most distinctive marks of 
its divine original. The absence of mystery would demon- 
strate it to be only a shallow cheat. 

Instead, then, of suffering ourselves to be perplexed 
and stumbled because we encounter mysteries in the 
Christian revelation, it is much wiser, as well as more 
becoming, certainly, that we cultivate a humble, docile 
spirit. How exceedingly limited, at best, is our horizon! 
What an infant, in a sober view, does the wisest man on’ 
earth appear, on the scale of universal being! We walk 
as if by moonlight. We are able to see the form and 
outline of the things immediately about us, with tolerable 
distinctness; but of the more remote, we can perceive 
only the dim shadows. It little befits our state and 
powers to be self-confident and wise in our own eyes. 
It is much more suitable to both, that we should take the 
attitude of children; and that, with a profound willing- 
ness to be taught, we should ask of God, the Fountain of 
eternal wisdom, that he will illuminate our souls ana 
guide us into truth. 

We ought likewise to consider, for the enkindling of a 


176 MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 


heartfelt gratitude, that the mysteries of our being had 
been far deeper and darker than they are, but for the 
partial light which God has afforded in his word. We 
assume, at this stage of our progress, that the Christian 
revelation is divine. By the help of this, where the wisest 
heathen, in all ages, have groped their way, we are able 
to see distinctly; and though we are able to know so 
little in comparison with the grand total of truth as open 
to the infinite mind, yet let us devotedly praise God that 
he has enabled us to know so much. It is enough to 
break the gloom of these our mortal days of darkness. It 
is enough to enable us to discern and keep the path of 
duty and of life. What though it does not enable us to 
look, with perfect vision, into the unfathomable depths of 
glory in the being and the counsels of the Deity, or to 
solve to our thought the perplexing enigmas of the 
universe. It ought not only to satisfy us, but to fill our 
souls with thankfulness, that the light we have is suffi- 
cient to lead us to the knowledge of all that is now essen- 
tial to our welfare. 

For the rest, it may content us that we can confidently 
anticipate the future increase of our knowledge. You are 
perhaps sometimes impatient now of the limits set to 
your inquiries. Your restless spirits, as it were, beat 
against the bars that shut them in, and long to penetrate 
beyond them and put an end to doubt. Receive, then, 
with a meek, and penitent, and trusting heart the blessed 
gospel of the Son of God, and mould by it your temper 
and your life, and you shall ere long rise to a higher 
region of existence. There the mysteries that now per~ 


ey eT 


MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH 77 


plex you will probably most of them be solved. The 
shadows of earth will no longer lie upon the fields of 
truth. Ido not say that new mysteries will not be found. 
On the contrary, since you are finite and God is infinite, 
you must for ever find them. But in the more perfect 
vision of that brighter world, you will be ever learning; 
and as old mysteries, one by one, are understood and new 
ones are presented, your circle of knowledge will be ever- 
more enlarging, and you will find an inexhaustible delight 
in studying into the secrets of the universe. While, 
therefore, you are humbled at your ignorance, and grate- 
ful for the degree of light you have, submit patiently to 
mysteries, and await in faith and hope the disclosures of 
the coming world. 

‘Mortal, who with a trembling, longing heart, 

Watchest in silence the few rays that steal 

In their kind dimness to thy feeble sight; 

Watch on in silence—till within thy soul, 

Springs the hid fountain of immortal life 

Then shall the mighty veil asunder rend 


And o’er the spirit living, strong and pure, 
Shall the full glories of the Godhead flow!” 


178 THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE 


XL . 


Che Highest Coidence may not Produce 
Peltet. 


JOHN xii. 87: But though He had done so many miracles before them, 
yet they believed not on him. 


HAT the public ministry of our blessed Lord was 
altogether extraordinary in its character, even the 


most determined and malignant of his enemies never pre-. 


tended to deny. In tone and spirit, in matter and 
manner, in word and work, it was unlike anything the 
world had ever known. It was because it was so unique, 
so original, so striking, that it arrested attention as it 
did; that it commended itself so powerfully to the candid 
and sincere, who waited for the consolation of Israel; and 
excited such implacable hostility in the minds of the 
proud, the self-righteous, and the sensual. 

But while the ministry of Christ had a character so 
marked that it could not fail to produce a marked impres- 
sion, its chief value, after all, was to depend on its being 
unhesitatingly accepted as divine. The grand question 
to be settled by all who might take an interest in the 
matter, was,—Is it a ministry which God has instituted, 
and has distinctly endorsed and ratified, as invested with 
authority from Him? That such was the fact, it was 


MAY NOT PRODUCE BELIEF. 179 


necessary to have established in the most conclusive 
manner. 

Of course, there was need that the claims of Jesus to 
have come down from heaven as the Lord’s Christ, as 
God’s special ambassador to men, and to have received 
from the Father the authority which, in his ministry, he 
assumed and exercised, should be sustained by proofs as 
extraordinary as the claims themselves. Such proofs, it 
is alleged, were amply furnished, especially in the aston- 
ishing miracles which he wrought in the most public 
manner, in a great variety of circumstances, and through- 
out the whole period of his public life. Yet what was 
the result? The text announces it: “ But though he had 
done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not 
on him.” It strikes us as a strange result. The pheno- 
menon is worthy to be studied. By a careful examination 
of the case we shall be led to some interesting and highly 
practical conclusions. 

How is it to be accounted for, that with all the miracles 
which he performed before them, so many nevertheless 
refused to believe in Christ? This question will suffi- 
ciently indicate the drift of the remarks which we pro- 
pose. 

We say then, first, that their persistent unbelief did not 
originate in any doubt as to the reality of the miracles 
themselves. Of this we are absolutely sure; because the 
reality of these mighty works was fully admitted by the 
fiercest of Christ’s opposers. That he actually did the 
things which he seemed to do, without any illusion or 
collusion in the matter, was habitually acknowledged ; 

12 


180 THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE 


was never, in fact, so far as there is evidence, denied in 
one solitary instance. They were wrought on all sorts of 
occasions, among all sorts of people, in the most open 
manner possible, and with every attending circumstance 
that could produce conviction; and it was doubtless 
because they were undeniable, and for no other reason, 
that they were undenied. It was without the least 
hesitation that Christ himself appealed to them as the 
decisive credentials of his divine commission, which he 
could not have done, had not their reality been univer- 
sally conceded. 

When, for example, John sent to him two of his dis- 
ciples, demanding, “Art thou he that should come, or do 
we look for another?” Jesus answered and said unto 
them, “Go and show John again those things which ye 
do hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the 
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the 
dead are raised up.” The whole force of this reply lies in 
the fact that they themselves had witnessed all these 
things, or most of them at least, which Luke tells us was 
the case, and that no doubt was thrown upon them from 
any quarter. 

The truth obviously is that very many of the miracles 
which Jesus did were established by such a kind of proof, 
and such an amount of proof, that there was not the 
smallest chance for cavil. When in the crowded street 
he stopped the funeral procession, and restored the 
widow’s son to life, who of that astonished throng would 
have ventured to deny the deed? When he multiplied 
the bread, and fed the five thousand with five loaves, and 


af 


MAY NOT PRODUCE BELIEF. 181 


on another occasion the four thousand with the seven 
loaves, who of all the multitudes that had themselves 
both witnessed the wonder and tasted of the food, could 
have ever questioned that a stupendous miracle: was 
wrought? So as to the opening of the eyes of the man 
born blind, well known, not only to his parents, but to 
great numbers who had been acquainted with him from his 
birth, or had often seen him as he sat begging by the 
wayside; it was impossible to gainsay the fact when he 
was seen with his sight restored. So in other cases; 
particularly in that of Lazarus. That Christ had raised 
him from the dead, there was no possibility of denying; 
it was known and acknowledged at Jerusalem, by friends 
and foes alike. 

When, therefore, the Scribes and Pharisees, and those 
who acted with them, rejected Jesus of Nazareth with all 
his wondrous works before them, we know that it was not 
because there was any suspicion as to the miracles them- 
selves. It was impossible for them to do otherwise than 
own that these miracles were real; and painful as the 
confession was, they were compelled to make it. 

Nor, in the second place, can the unbelief to which the 
text refers, have originated in any want of adaptation in 
miracles to produce a conviction of Christ’s divine com- 
mission. 

Although our Lord himself distinctly appealed to his 
miracles as affording unanswerable proof that he came 
from God, and although the apostles did the same, and 
the ablest Christian writers of all ages have agreed in so 

* regarding them, it has become quite the fashion with a 


182 THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE 


certain class of writers in our day to deny that miracles, 
admitting them as really performed, can establish any 
truth at all. In support of their position these modern 
sages’ insist that no miracle, however great, can supply the 
several steps in the logical process by which an abstract 
truth is made clear to the understanding ; can give, in 
other words, a complete demonstration of a theorem. But 
this assertion is, in reality, nothing to the purpose. The 
question is not a question of abstract truth at all; but of 
truth in the concrete—a simple question of fact. A per- 
son claims to possess divine power. Does he really possess 
it _—That is the question. If he performs a miracle he 
exercises divine power. Does not that prove that he pos- 
sesses it? Ifa work of God is manifestly wrought, what 

other demonstration can be asked that the power of God 
is there ? 

Besides—although it be admitted that a miracle cannot 
convey the logical process by which the reason is put in 
possession of a truth, it does not follow that it may not 
afford a solid basis on which the reason may construct 
such a process for itself ; and so arrive at even abstract 
truth, to which without the miracle it could not have 
attained. We maintain that the miracles of Christ did 
both demonstrate that the power of God was in him, and 
furnish the ground for many important deductions in rela- 
tion to his person. Let us look at the case particularly 
and see. 

. We have seen that the miracles of Christ were admitted 
on all hands to be real. That they were not wrought by 
merely dwman power was acknowledged also ; for this is 


MAY NOT PRODUCE BELIEF. 183 


involved in the very notion of a miracle. But two sup- 
positions then were possible. Either they were wrought 
as Christ himself affirmed, by the power of God residing 
in him, or else by the power of the devil, as some of his 
enemies alleged. The one or the other of these things, it was 
clear, must be the truth. But the miracles of Christ were 
all of them, or nearly all, manifestly benevolent in their 
character, and many of them were in direct and obvious 
subversion of the dominion and influence of Satan ; and 
the question which Christ asked of those who pretended 
to ascribe his works to Satanic agency,—“ If Satan cast out 
Satan, how then shall his kingdom stand,’”—exposed effec- 
tually the absurdity of the idea, that there was any such 
agency in the case. What then was the inevitable con- 
clusion, to every one who reasoned soundly? Jesus of 
Nazareth comes as the messenger of God. In proof of 
his commission he performs these mighty works. They are 
undeniably beyond all human power. They are palpably 
opposed to the interests and the spirit of the devil. They 
do, therefore, evince the truth of what he claims. They do 
exhibit the power of God as residing in him. 

Such, it is clear, was the proper force and bearing of 
the miracles which were wrought by Jesus Christ. Such 
was the impression that they were well adapted to produce. 
It is but a poor sophistry of our modern days that denies 
their fitness to produce conviction. It was not, therefore, 
because they were not valid evidence of his Messiahship, 
that those in whose presence they were wrought did not 
believe in Jesus. They were the proper credentials of the 
divinity of his mission. 


184 THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE 


We come then, in the third place, to observe that the 
true explanation of the unbelief of those to whom the text 
relates, must be sought in the state of their own minds as 
regards their preparation for a right receiving of the evi- 
dence, and not in any want of force or adaptation in the 
evidence itself. 

The fact that the effect of evidence depends materially 
on the internal condition of those to whom it is presented, 
we may here assume as granted. The clearest light, if the 
eyes of the understanding be darkened by the influence of 
perverting causes, may fall almost in vain. Even where 
the understanding is convinced, the desires and biases of a 
heart that is corrupt, and the stubbornness of a will that 
is determined not to yield, may prevent the plainest cer- 
tainties from being received with a cordial faith. Such 
are the well-kuown laws of mental action. 

How was it then with those who with all the miracles 
of Christ before them, refused to believe on him? It is 
plain, from what we know of the nation generally, and 
from what the history records of these persons in parti- 
cular, that they were in a state exceedingly unfavourable 
to a right appreciation of the personal character of our 
Lord. and to a hearty reception of his spiritual and holy 
teachings. They were gross and carnal in their views and 
spirit. Their morality was an outward show, which was 
worn over the most thorough selfishness. Their religion 
was rotten at the core—a mere semblance of piety, inspired 
only by arrogance and pride. They were fully prepos- 
sessed with the idea that the Messiah promised to theix 
fathers was to be an entirely different sort of person from 


MAY NOT PRODUCE BELIEF. 185 


what they saw in the Son of Joseph and Mary ; and that 
his advent and career were to be in quite another style 
than those of Jesus. Looking for one who should restore 
the Jewish nation, and bring back its ancient glory, they 
were ill prepared to see in the humble Nazarene the illus- 
trious person whose coming and character had been fore- 
told in the lofty strains of prophets, and longed for by 
holy patriarchs and kings. Worse than all, when they 
came to listen to the words of Christ, those words which 
probed their hearts to the very bottom ; when they per- 
ceived that his aims were purely spiritual in all his teach- 
ing—that to save the lost was the grand object of his 
mission—that the abandonment of sin, self-sacrifice, 
and deadness to the world, were the conditions of his 
discipleship, and that the honours and distinctions 
which he offered were to be reached only through toil 
and sufferings, and after the scenes of this earthly life 
were past; when, I say, they learned all this from the 
lips of Christ, their hearts were filled, of course, with the 
most intense repugnance to such a teacher and to such 
demands. 

Here, therefore, there were powerful moral causes to 
neutralise the force of evidence, and to turn away the 
mind from the exercise of faith. There was all the strength 
_ of prejudices long cherished, and all the antipathy of sel- 
fish and unholy hearts, which must be overcome, before 
they could receive Christ and his doctrines as divine. It 
was in vain that his purity of character compelled their 
admiration. It was in vain that the surpassing simplicity 
and beauty of his doctrines, as well as the more than 


186 THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE 


human authority and power with which he spake, appealed 
to their consciences and hearts... It was in vain that he 
clearly showed them, in his expositions of the Scriptures, 
that the Messianic prophecies all pointed to precisely such 
a person as himself. It was in vain, that not only in 
Jerusalem, but throughout the towns and villages of Gal- 
lilee, he healed the sick, restored the blind, gave hearing 
to the deaf, recalled the dead to life, wrought every miracle, 
in short, for which any occasion offered ; and so gave 
ample demonstration that in him dwelt the power of the 
Most High. The dislike of the heart prevailed over the 
force of evidence and perverted the understanding. The 
obstinacy of the unyielding will resisted the decisions of 
the conscience. Wicked and highly excited passions dis- 
turbed the entire action of the mind, and rendered it mor- 
bid and impulsive. In a word, those who rejected Christ, 
with all his miracles before them, were so completely under 
the sway of their own corruptions, in bondage to the power 
of evil, that in this their present moral state there were 
insurmountable impediments to the right reception of him. 
The proofs were ample. To pure and upright minds they 
would have been perfectly convincing. But on them they 
were lost in a very great degree. They were able, there- 
fore, to struggle successfully against their proper force, 
and to maintain themselves in spite.of them in unbelief. 
“Therefore they could not believe,”-—says the Evangelist 
in the context,—‘‘ because that Esaias said, He hath blinded 
their eyes, and hardened their heart ; that they should 
not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, 
and be converted, and I should heal them.” Left wholl y 


MAY NOT PRODUCE BELIEF. 187 


to themselves, no force of evidence could lead them to the 
right conclusions. 

From the examination we have thus given to the par- 
ticular fact stated in the text, we may derive, as was ob- 
served in the beginning, some general truths in which we 
ourselves have a deep and personal concern. 

First of all, we are led to the conclusion that no amount 
of light shed on the understanding, will, of itself, avail to 
produce a genuine faith in Christ. 

If when the Son of God was on the earth, the very per- 
sons who saw him raise up the dead to life by his simple 
word could still persist in unbelief, then what amount of 
evidence may not an evil heart resist ? Ifa wrong state 
of moral feeling could break the force of the proof which 
the most imposing miracles afforded, what kind or degree 
of proof can be conceived, which it may not render nuga- 
tory? 

The truth is, that Christian faith, the faith that rightly 
relies on Jesus Christ, supposes, along with a convinced 
understanding, an acquiescing heart and will—the full 
consent of the voluntary nature. But while the soul is in 
‘ove with sin, and swayed by selfishness, and averse to the 
holy, self-denying duties which are-included in disciple- 
ship, no such consent can ever come from its hidden 
depths. Let light be poured around it like the blaze of 
noonday, it will be sure to find some subterfuge wherewith 
to screen itself. Of this a thousand actual illustrations 
may easily be found. 

Here, then, is seen how great is the delusion of those 
persons—we fear that there are many of them—who, 


188 THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE 


secretly, or half-unconsciously, perhaps, but really, per 
suade themselves, that the reason why they do not believe 
savingly in Christ, is that they need some more convincing 
proof that he is indeed the true and only Saviour. They 
hear the glorious gospel. They are more or less impressed 
with the character and works of Jesus Christ. Unlike 
the Jews, they have no national and traditional prejudices 
which stand in the way of a general acknowledgment that 
Christ is the true Messiah, and that Christianity as a sys- 
tem is divine. In short, they have an educational belief, 
a vague persuasion of thé understanding even, resulting 
from some examination, it may be, of the truth and im- 
portance of the peculiar Christian doctrines. But as to 
the matter of exercising a personal faith in Christ, of per- 
sonally becoming his hearty and avowed disciples,—they 
think they cannot do it for want of proofs which should 
tell with greater power for their conviction. Are there not_ 
those in this assembly whose case is now described 1—who 
have imagined that could they but hear a voice immedi- 
ately from heaven, or could one be sent from the dead to 
testify to them, as Dives wished, they should then repent 
and believe the gospel ? 

Such thoughts are all delusive, certainly. Look:at the 
persons to whom the text refers. Suppose that Dives had 
actually been sent to them. How could he have furnished 
stronger evidence that he had come from the world of 
spirits, than Jesus placed before them, in proof of his 
divine commission? If unbelief refused to yield in one 
case, why should it not have refused equally in the other? 
So in your own case. You have Christ’s character, and 


MAY NOT PRODUCE BELIEF. 189 


teachings, and miracles, and all the blessed fruits which 
Christianity has brought forth in the world for eighteen 
hundred years before you—and yet you do not believe in 
Christ to your salvation. What if Gabriel himself were 
sent to you to-day, with messages all fresh from the 
throne of God? How could he offer you credentials more 
decisive than those which Jesus brings? Even if he 
could, would that remove the difficulties that lie not in the 
understanding but in the heart? “With the heart,” says 
Paul, “man believeth unto righteousness.” Light—testi- 
mony—proofs—relate to the understanding. They cannot 
change the heart. So long as the heart is evil, the under- 
standing will be but partially convinced, most probably ; or 
if it should be wholly, the heart and will would still refuse 
the consent of cordial faith. So long as your feelings, the 
moral affections of your souls, continue as they are, you 
will turn away from Christ, and hold on in unbelief. 

This leads us to notice, secondly, the necessity which, 
from the subject, it is plain exists, that to bring men 
truly to believe in Christ some rectifying power should be 
applied directly to the heart. And here there is no un- 
certainty as to what that power must be. The renewing 
of the Holy Ghost must be felt within the soul. For this 
work he has been sent. Under his regenerating power it 
must be fitted to receive aright impression from the truth ; 
must be set free from the bondage of its pride and pre- 
judice and self-will ; must be softened into tenderness, 
brought into sympathy with what is holy, and so disposed 
to yield itself with full and ready acquiescence to the evi- 
dence which lies before it, that Jesus is the Saviour of the 


190 THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE 


world, and as such worthy of its confidence and love. “ No 
man can come to me,” says Christ, “except the Father which 
hath sent me draw him ;” and again, “ Except a man be born 
of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” 

Yes, you, who are waiting for still stronger proofs that 
Christ is your Redeemer, and that the gospel is divine, 
here is your great, your absolute necessity. This you, 
most likely, do not truly feel ; but such is undoubtedly the 
fact. If but the Holy Ghost once breathe on your now 
stubborn heart, it will thenceforth be soft and yielding. 
If he take the things of Christ and reveal them unto you, 
you will no longer be able to resist the overpowering im- 
pression of his glory. If he renew a right spirit within 
you, your tastes and sympathies will no more be obstruc- 
tions to your faith, but wili have become its powerful 
auxiliaries. Oh, for the coming of that Spirit from above 
to do this work within you! This is our daily prayer— 
the prayer of all who have believed—on your behalf. We 
have no hope from stronger arguments for the truth of 
our religion; no hope from greater light could it ever be 
enjoyed. Our hope that you will believe in Christ and 
live, rests wholly on the promise of the Spirit to convince 
the world of sin and to regenerate the sinful soul. We 
will cry, so long as the mercy of God shall spare you, 
“Come, O breath, from the four winds of heaven, and 
breathe on these slain, that they may live!” 

Of course, we are able to see plainly, in the last place, 
how utterly hopeless, though living in the midst of the 
most precious Christian privileges, are those from whom 
the Holy Spirit is withdrawn. 


MAY NOT PRODUCE BELIEF. 191 


That he was at length withdrawn from the unbelieving 
Jews is certain. Jesus himself wept over them in view 
- of the distressing fact : “Oh, if thou hadst known, even thou, 
in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace ; but 
now they are Azdden from thine eyes!” That he is now 
withdrawn from many who still enjoy the gospel, there is 
painful reason to believe. The Scriptures clearly intimate 
this as true; and “ Grieve not the Spirit,” “Quench not the 
Spirit,” are the warning voices which they raise ; while 
the moral deadness in which so many live and die are 
affecting comments on their teachings. Of course, as 
light alone, however clear, will never bring them to be- 
lieve in Christ; as the Holy Ghost alone is able to accom- 
plish this, the moment he finally departs from them, the 
last hope of their eternity goes out in utter darkness. 

Perhaps while we were just now saying; that there was 
an absolute necessity that the Holy Spirit of God should 
rightly dispose the heart —your heart—in order to the 
exercise of genuine faith, the question was suggested to 
your thoughts, Why then does he not come, and perform 
the necessary work in me? You even think, perhaps, 
that you desire he would, and are waiting that he may. 
Why, then, in reality does he not? Without attempting 
to pry into things which are not revealed, perhaps we can 
learn something on this point. Why does he not do his 
peculiar work in you? 

Did you ever earnestly entreat him that he would? Did 
you ever go to him in your solitary place to tell him of 
-all the blindness, the carnality, the perverseness of your 
heart, and beg him with self-abasement and with tears 


192 THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE, ETO. 


to change it? Have you ever seriously sought to with- 
draw your heart from worldliness and folly, and to yield 
it to the Spirit that he might mould it at his will? Or if 
you have ever done these things, have you done them with 
a deep concern and a determined perseverance? 

Jf not, what need have you to raise the question, Why 
the Holy Spirit does not come to do his renovating work 
in you? Why should he? If you are not sufficiently 
concerned to seek his saving help; if you will neither in- 
vite him to your heart, nor open it to give him entrance ; 
are not these good reasons for his absence, whatever others 
there may be? It is not surely to be wondered at, in such 
a case, that he does not renew your soul. Nor will it be, 
if being long neglected and resisted he withdraws from 
you for ever, and leaves you in the hopeless state of those 
who with all the mighty miracles of Christ before them, 
persisted still in their unbelief. 

Ah—it is true, you who, with the clearest light, do not 
believe in Christ, that you tread on perilous ground. It 
is a renovated, holy heart you want—a heart touched by 
the Holy Ghost. The provisions of the gospel are not 
without conditions. It is to them that ask Him, that your 
heavenly Father is more willing to give the Holy Spirit, 
than parents are to give good things unto their children. 
But you ask not, seek not, knock not, at the door of 
mercy. Oh, take ye heed, lest ye be left to the fatal quiet 
which follows the final withdrawment of the divine Spirit 
from the soul. Come while he urges you to believe in 
Christ and live! 


THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE, ETC. 193 


XII, 


The Dark Things of Lite in the Light of 
Revelation. 


1 Kines xvi. 22: So Tibni died, and Omri reigned. 


T is a strange world in which we live. About us, on all 
sides, a thousand things are constantly occurring, 
which but for the fact that we have been familiar with 
such events from childhood, would startle and astonish 
us; and which do, even as it is, sometimes occasion many 
troubled thoughts in sober and reflecting minds. 

Our circle of observation, too, is very limited. We see 
but little of the whole field of human life and action as 
our own time presents it ; to say nothing of the great 
history of humanity considered as extending through all 
ages, But if, by some supernatural aid, we could be 
gifted with the power to see at once all that is actually 
transpiring in the fortunes of mankind ; or if some swift- 
winged angel be imagined as making a full survey of all, 
there would, of course, be seen to be vastly more to 
excite one’s wonder, in this all-embracing view, than falls 
at present within our observation. No words could give 
an adequate impression of the scenes which would be wit- 
nessed. Omri, ascending the throne, may be regarded as 
representing the extreme of fortune, on the favourable 
side, since men are wont to count a throne the pinnacle of 


194 THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE 


earthly prosperity and glory. ‘Tibni, on the other hand, 
may be taken as representing the opposite, or unfavour- 
able extreme; since death is reckoned, by common con- 
sent, the greatest of all the ills which a human being is 
liable to suffer. Between these two extremes—that of 
rising to the highest summit of worldly splendour and 
delight, and that of sinking to the dreariness of death and 
of the grave—an infinite number and variety of incidents 
are momentarily occurring to the millions of mankind. If 
all the passing expressions of human thought and feeling 
to which these incidents are giving rise, could be conveyed 
together to one ear, who can conceive the confusion and 
discords of the mighty chorus so produced? Words of 
tenderness and love, mingling with those of malignity and 
hate; exclamations of ecstatic pleasure, blending with 
groans of anguish and despair; voices of wisdom, deliver- 
ing itself in high discourse, and of folly, sensuality, and 
sin, giving utterances of shame and guilt 3 sounds of 
revelry and dancing, of pipe, and tabret, and song, of bril- 
liant talk and of pealing laughter, along with the shrieks 
of the insane, the wail of thousands stretched on the 
gory battle-fields of nations, the low murmurs of death- 
beds, and the sobs of broken-hearted weepers, gathered 
round them ;—all these and more, in one commingled - 
volume, would strike the stunned and bewildered sense. 
They all are actually heard together every moment by the 
ear of the omnipresent God. 

Or if it can be conceived that all the countless phases 
of human fortune which belong to any given day or hour, 
should be at once presented to the eye of one observer, no 


IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION. . 195 


pen of man or angel can portray the mingled lights and 
shades of the astounding picture. Whoever chooses may 
try his own imagination in the effort to realize it to him- 
self. But we will not attempt even to sketch a faint and 
general outline, of what is really beyond all human power, 
not merely of description, but even of thought itself, 

It is certainly no wonder, then, that life is so often pro- 
nounced a mystery. To the view of natural reason unas- 
sisted, it is a mystery, dark, perplexing, and insoluble. 
Yes ; without the light which revelation throws upon it, 
the more one knows of life, the wider his experience of its 
vicissitudes, the more profoundly mysterious it is. We 
ask in vain of reason, Whence all these painful contrasts, 
this confusion, this singular medley of good and evil? 
But with the Bible in our hands, we do obtain at least a 
partial satisfaction. If we cannot fully solve the problem 
of human life as the world actually presents it everywhere, 
we may assure ourselves beyond all doubt that we have 
found the clue to the true solution. We may find some 
lifting of the shadows which rest on the condition of 
humanity; we may discover, even in life’s strangest 
spectacles, some lessons of instruction well worthy of our 
serious attention. This, then, is what we now propose : 
to lead the way in some reflections on the mutabiiity of 
human fortunes, as contemplated in the light of our divine 
religion ; in doing which, of course, we assume as granted, 
the being, perfection, and universal government of God, 
and the reality of a positive revelation. 

The first fact which presents itself, when we consider 


the singular diversities of human fortune from the posi- 
13 : 


196 _. THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE 


tion now defined, is this—that human life, as it actually 
appears, is plainly not in harmony with the government 
and will of God. Mankind are not, in other words, what 
God, in their creation, fitted them to be, and what in his 
providence he has given them ample opportunity to become. 
Gifted with freedom; adapted to virtuous action and 
enjoyment; surrounded with means of physical, intel- 
lectual, and moral culture, instructed as to their relations 
to God, and their obligations to obey him ; the race, by the 
abuse of their high endowments, opportunities, and know- 
ledge, have come into bondage to appetite and sense, and 
placed themselves in a state of alienation from God, and 
antagonism to his authority and law. With the views of 
the divine character and government which the Bible fur- 
nishes before us, the moral apostasy and ruin of mankind, 
the debasement and degeneracy of their condition, the two 
great facts, in a word, that they are a sinful race, and that 
as such they deserve to suffer evil, are clear and undeni- 
able. Man has himself a responsibility in relation to his 
own welfare—a power, within certain limits, to determine 
his own fortunes ; and the Scriptures say of the race that 
they have all gone out of the way, have together become 
unprofitable, so that there is none that doeth good, no, 
not one. Some more, and some less entirely, they have 
yielded themselves to evil; but all, as alike estranged 
from God, are justly liable to bear the penalties of sin. 
Now, when we look with pain at the vanity of human 
life—at the instability of its joys, the multiplicity of its 
sorrows, and the affecting vicissitudes which it presents— 
we are never to forget that this condition of things is, to a 


IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION. 197 


very great extent, the result of the folly and madness of 
mortal men themselves. If we examine the structure of 
our own being, or the constitution and course of nature, 
we shall not find in either anything to make it necessary 
that life should be the empty affair it too generally is. 
“Thou hast made him but little lower than the angels,” said 
the psalmist, when he considered the noble faculties of 
man. So when he surveyed the order, and beauty, and 
benevolent adjustments of the natural world, he broke out 
in the language of profound admiration: “O Lord, how 
manifold are thy works! In wisdom has thou made them 
all. The earth is full of thy riches.” Man is constitu- 
tionally capable of a far higher and better life than that 
which now he leads ; within his reach are richer and more 
enduring enjoyments than those which now he ordinarily 
attains. _ Did he but live in harmony with the will of the 
Creator, there would still indeed be varieties of fortune, 
~ but only varieties of good and happy fortune; and not 
the painful contrasts, the mixture of good and evil, which 
we at present everywhere observe. 

Here, then, in this fundamental fact of human sinfulness, 
we have certainly some light on the dark problem which 
the chequered and ever shifting aspect of mortal life pre- 
sents. The oppressive feeling which naturally arises when 
we regard our race as doomed to live amidst perpetual 
contingencies and change—a feeling that prompts the 
query in our minds whether or not they are justly dealt 
with—is most materially relieved when we are brought to 
estimate their characters and merits by the test of a per- 
fect moral law. If we were conscious that we ourselves 


198 THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE 


were innocent, and believed that the same was true of 
mankind at large, our moral sense would doubtless pro- 
nounce our earthly lot unrighteously severe. Our sense 
of justice would rise up against the providential govern- 
ment of God. But once let us admit that we are guilty 
in the sight of God—unworthy of unmingled favour at 
his hand—and conscience takes at once the other side. 
Tt tells us that our measure of good is, after all, far 
greater than we deserve. There is no more room for com- 
plaining thoughts. We cannot help perceiving that the 
painful mutability of human happiness on earth is quite 
consistent with the infinite benevolence of God. We may 
observe one rising and another falling every hour; we may 
pass ourselves through all varieties of fortune, and yet find 
no good ground on which to impeach the wisdom or the 
justice of the Supreme Ruler of the world. A sinful 
world may well be a world of inconstant foftunes, of in- 
terrupted and precarious happiness. 

A second fact which throws light on the problem pre- 
sented by the inconstancy of human fortunes, is that the 
present life is but the prelude or initiatory stage of an 
existence without end. 

With the Scriptures in our hands the doctrine of im- 
mortality is settled. That the chief scene of our existence 
lies beyond that strange event which we call death, is nov 
as certain as any fact of natural science. Yet it is fur 
more difficult to give it practical reality to our minds. 
Weare in bondage to mere sense; and it is hard for us to 
rid ourselves of its illusions. It is difficult to rise above 
the habit into which we naturally incline to fall, of judging 


a 


IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION. 199 


of this life as though it were to be considered by itself ; 
as though death were a real, and not simply an apparent 
termination of our being—a transition only from one stage 
to another. 

Now, it will easily be seen that it must make a mighty 
difference, in our views of the events of the present life, 
whether we regard it as a whole in uself, or only as a pre- 
liminary part, standing related to a far more grand and 
interesting sequel afterwards to come. No wonder that 
the lot of mortals appears mysterious and gloomy, con- 
sidered as a complete existence. A few years swiftly 
fleeting by; childhood, youth, manhood, age, succeeding 
each other like the changes of a dream ; and all exhibit- 
ing every imaginable diversity of fortune—here smiles and 
there tears; now successes and now reverses; this moment 
hope, the next despair; a throne to-day, a grave to-mor- 
row. What is there in such an existence to satisfy? 
What is there worth the having? Listen to the language 
of one who, denying revelation, could take no other view 
of life but this. “In man,” says Voltaire, “there is more 
wretchedness than in all the other animals put together. 
He loves life, yet he knows that he must die. If he enjoys 
a transient good, he suffers various evils, and is at last 
devoured by worms. ‘This knowledge—of his end—is his 
fatal prerogative; other animals have it not. He spends 
the transient moments of existence in diffusing the miseries 
which he suffers; in cutting the throats of his fellow- 
creatures for pay; in cheating and being cheated; in 
robbing and being robbed ; in serving that he might cum- 
mand; and in repenting of all he does. The bulk of 


900 THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE 


mankind are nothing more than a crowd of wretches, 
equally criminal and unfortunate ; and the globe contains 
rather carcasses than men. I tremble at this dreadful 
picture to find that it contains a complaint against Provi- 
dence itself ; and I wish I had never been born!” Ah, 
wretched man! Such are the miseries of unbelief. Such 
are the views of life which are likely to be taken by those 
who see in it no relation to an immortal life beyond. 

But this dismal picture changes its aspect at once, when 
by the aid of revelation we put the present in its true rela- 
tion to the future. With this illumination falling around 
us from above, the events of these mortal years acquire a 
new significance. Now, we perceive that this our brief 
career on earth, is not our life—but only a few moments, 


as it were, introductory to that life. 


“O listen man! 
A voice within us speaks the startling words, 
Mau—thou shalt never die! — Celestial voices 
Hymn it around our souls: according harps, 
By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars 
Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
The song of our great immortality. 
O listen, ye our spirits; drink it in 
From all the air! ‘tis in the gentle moonlight ; 
Tis floating in day’s setting glories; Night 
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step 
Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears.” 


Thus assured, and constantly reminded of the vastness 
of our being, it seems less singular, most certainly, that 
this first stage of it should necessarily involve some tem- 
porary discomforts and privations, to say nothing here of 
the mischiefs wrought by sin. It may obviously be true 
that there are good reasons why, for this transient pre- 


IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION. 201 


paratory period, enjoyment—happiness—should not be the 
chief thing to be secured. When a young man is placed 
by his parents in the condition of an apprentice, the main 
object is not to make him happy during the limited term 
of years for which he serves. On the contrary, it is dis- 
tinctly understood that, for the sake of the future yeurs of 
lefe, he is, for the present, to submit to many sacrifices ; 
to bear patiently not a few self-denials and privations ; 
and even possibly some actual hardships. Why, then, 
should it be wondered at, if in this brief apprenticeship of 
ours on earth, this first short scene of an interminable 
existence, it should not seem to be the design of Provi- 
dence to make us completely happy; if, on the contrary, 
it should subject us to many trials and discomforts. Why 
should it not be rationally believed, that so many, at least, 
of the adversities which mark our lives as are fairly to be 
attributed to the providence of God, are fitted to subserve 
some ends, in reference to the future, far more important 
than that of giving us a present pleasure? And if this 
be admitted, then from this point of view, there are some 
cheering rays to gild the troubled waters of life’s ever- 
restless sea. The terrible picture drawn by the pen of un- 
belief, which we have quoted, is seen to be essentially a 
false one ; and the fortunes of humanity, inconstant and 
in many aspects painful as they are, seem far less mys- 
terious and gloomy than before. 

We come then to a third fact, namely, that considering 
life as a school of discipline with reference to character, its 
perpetual vicissitudes materially help to adapt it to its 
end. 


202 THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE 


We have just had occasion to observe, that during a 
short initiatory period of our being, it may well be that 
happiness should be regarded, as, for the time, only a 
secondary thing ; and we have now further to add, what 
in the light of the word of God we are very sure is true, 
that the whole economy of things pertaining to our condi- 
tion in this world, is arranged primarily with a view to the 
formation of right character. In this the divine wisdom 
and goodness are alike apparent. For in right character, 
and in this alone, can the foundations of solid and endur- 
ing happiness be laid. 

In order to right character, there must be discipline. 
It is difficult for us to conceive that even a race of beings 
commencing their existence in a state of innocence, should . 
develop virtuous and holy character, in maturity and 
strength without the discipline of trials. Certainly to a 
sinful race like ours, it is plain that even a severe regimen 
for a season may be, if not absolutely indispensable, at 
least eminently fitted to prove useful, as a means of such 
development. 

Painful, therefore, as it may be to contemplate the 
vanity of mortal life as seen in the instability of human 
fortunes, and the diversities of human condition, it cannot 
be denied that this very state of things exhibits a wise 
and good arrangement, for the attainment of a most im- 
portant end. 

How is it, for example, that mankind are most 
effectually awakened from the dreams of a mere sensual 
and selfish life, and brought to some serious reflection on 
themselves and on their duties? Is it not by the dis- 


IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION. 203 


covery that the visions of pleasure which have looked to 
them so enchanting and s0 real, are all vanishing around 
them, as the golden hues of sunset fade while yet they 
are admired? How isit that men become most thoroughly 
convinced that the riches, the renown, the distinctions, the 
power, and all the manifold forms of worldly good, are by 
no means the highest and best objects of desire? Is it 
not by the experience, or the observation, of the disap- 
pointments which attend the pursuit, and the dissatisfac- 
tion and uncertainty connected with the full possession of 
them? What seems so likely to lead men to feel their 
dependence upon God, and to resort to him as willing to 
become their Father, Friend, and portion, as the want of 
sympathy they feel—and the need of something stable to 
confide in—when all around them is like the shifting 
sands, and nothing gives them rest? What nurses all 
the kindly virtues like contact with the suffering, or being 
ourselves the sufferers? How, but in the struggles which 
life-long must be waged with capricious fortune, to wrest 
from her the successes to be gained, or to surmount the 
adversities to be endured, are all the manly energies of 
virtuous character and holy principle to be called forth 
into strength ? 

Yes, if we seriously consider, we shall see that by the 
instability of human fortunes which, on the first impres- 
sion, seems to cover life with gloom, there is supplied a 
necessary and most salutary discipline. By this it is that 
life is fitted to become to every one a noble schvul in 
which to shape the character, and to secure the highest 

. and best training of the soul. Ease, quiet, uninterrupted 


204 THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE 


pleasures, would be nearly or quite certain, if constantly 
enjoyed through a course of years, to beget weakness of 
purpose, the love of self-indulgence, and a sensual and 
slothful spirit. It is in the stern conflicts of life which 
grow out of its mutations ; in the wrestlings with adver- 
sity, which rouse all the faculties to action, and gird up 
the whole man to the utmost energy of effort; that 
patience, courage, confidence in God, and constancy to the 
sense of duty, with other kindred virtues, are best origi- 
nated and matured. 

It remains, in the fourth place, to notice one fact more. 
It is that over all the fluctuations and diversities of human 
fortune, God exercises an unceasing and intelligent super- 
intendence, directed to the end of working out the good of 
those who intrust their happiness to him. Of this 
deeply interesting fact the word of revelation makes us 
sure. 

When we look at the spectacle of life—at its vast gra- 
dation of conditions, and its never ceasing changes—we 
are half inclined to feel that it is a world of chance in 
which we live. It almost seems as if we ourselves, and 
others, were left the sport of accident, like bubbles on a 
stormy sea, driven hither and thither by the ever-varying 
tempest. To think this were a great mistake. Under 
such conditions it were indeed a wretched thing to live. 

Instead of this, we know that in all the countless muta- 
tions of human things, there is not one, which God does 
not himself directly order, or for wise purposes permit. 
We know that God, having, by the provision of abundant 
mercy through Jesus Christ, his Son, invited men to come 


IN THE LIGHT OF 2EVELATION. 205 


in their conscious guilt and weakness, and put their trust 
in him, has also pledged himself to make all things work 
together for good to them that do so, We know that 
Jesus, the Redeemer and sufficient Saviour of the world, 
has bound himself, as the faithful shepherd, to go before 
his own, and to keep them unto life eternal, We hear him 
promise that in the midst of outward tribulations, in him 
they should have peace ; and that he will not leave them 
comfortless, but will come unto them. 

This, then, we know with certainty ; that whatever 
may be, to human view, the fickleness of fortune ; how- 
ever many and great the vicissitudes which every day may 
bring ; those who shall come at the call of mercy and 
make the eternal God their refuge, shall never suffer one 
reverse to their real detriment ; shall never see one hope 
lie shattered to their harm; shall never have one tear too 
many for their good wrung from them ; shall never feel 
one pang that shall not minister to their intenser joy at 
last. God, who is able to bring good out of evil, will so 
direct all changes of their lot, that even from the tossings 
of the fitful sea of life, there shall eventually come to 
them more perfect and serene repose. 

Here, indeed, a flood of light breaks in upon the shaded 
scene of life. In all the shifting acts of the ever changing 
drama, the agency of God is present directing all things 
to the end of blessing those who are willing to be blest. 
There is no real blindness of fortune, as men have fabled, 
after all. There 7s no fortune but the providence of God. 
It is God that setteth up. It is God that casteth down. 
It is he that hath pronounced those blessed always and 


9206 THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE © 


everywhere, who heartily commit the care of their happi- 
ness to him. 

We are not, then, you perceive, condemned to brood in 
hopeless melancholy over the vanity and transitoriness of 
the pursuits and hopes of this mortal life. We are not 
like the hapless denier of revealed religion, to see in the 
condition of mankind only unmitigated evil, and in view 
of it to cast reproach on the great Ruler of the world. If 
the human race is sinful, they involve themselves in 
suffering and deserve it. If life is a short preparatory 
season with reference to an endless being, it may naturally 
involve the necessity of present crosses; if it is meant to 
be a school of discipline, it is clearly well adapted to its 
purpose. If God presides over all the vicissitudes of for- 
tune, to work out good for all who confide in him, those 
who accept his guardianship have nothing at all to fear. 
In all events, from the mounting to a throne to the 
putting on of grave clothes, their interests shall alike be 
safe. When, therefore, we observe or reflect upon the 
changes that in the lot of man so rapidly succeed each 
other, and at all the diversities of condition that every- 
where appear, we are to feel that we have at least a partial 
illumination of the mystery of life; we are to look on it 
with unfaltering confidence in the benevolence of God; 
and especially we are to study anxiously the responsibili- 
ties which it imposes upon us, in cheerful hope and faith- 
‘ful effort, to rise to a state of stable and perfected happi- 
ness at a future period of our being. 

Let us, then, fix it in our minds, for this is the great 
practical lesson of our subject, that mot to understand the 


IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION. 207 


true nature and design of life, as shown us in the Scrip- 
tures, is the greatest of calamities. Since the chief value 
of the present state of being depends on its being a place 
in which the punishment of sin is for a while delayed—a 
place of preparation and discipline for the eternal future— 
a place in which the love and care of God is pledged to 
work out good to them that love him,—if we thought- 
lessly neglect to notice this and act accordingly, we 
endure the trials and miss all the useful ends of living 
here. Ah! how many do this in their folly! It es the 
height of folly to mistake this fleeting, shadowy, unsatis- 
fying scene of things for the scene of our full emstence ! 
When we regard it in this liight—when we try to rear the 
structure of our welfare on these false, sliding quicksands 
—we doom ourselves to disappointments without solace, 
to painful labours without any adequate reward. Oh, — 
rather let us thankfully accept the light that infinite love 
has made to stream from heaven on our path, “Iam the 
light of the world,” saith the blessed Son of God. . Yes, 
he hath brought life and immortality to light! Hz hath 
given us exceeding great and precious promises. HE is 
the Rock of Ages, on which, where all else is unstable, we 
may build our hopes securely. Hz hath engaged to wipe 
all the tears of those who accept and follow him, far—far 
away from these transitory scenes, where he will make 
them speedily forget the sufferings here endured, in the 
solid, changeless, pure delights of heaven! In Christ 
alone, and in his gospel, is the true solution for us of 
lifes great mystery. If we fail to avail ourselves of this, 
we May reign, we may die, we may pass through all the 


208 THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE, ETC. 


vicissitudes that lie between—but “vanity of vanities” 
will be the record of our experience ; and we shall end 
our sad career in a darkness to which there shall never, 
never be a dawn! From this may Eternal Love pre- 
serve us! 


THE GOSPEL THE SOLE HOPE OF THE WORLD. 209 


XITl. 


The Gospel the Sole Pope of the World. 


Mark xvi. 15: ‘‘ And he saith unto them, Go ye into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature.” 


CCEPTING the Christian revelation, we accept, of 
course, the grand fact which it announces—that 
Christ came to save the world. It needed saving then. 
The whole significance and value of his mission must 
stand on the previous fact that mankind were in a state of 
moral ruin—a state as to any power of self-recovery ab- 
solutely hopeless. Not by any means that the race had 
lost the God-like constitutional endowments which they 
originally received—the- intellect, the conscience, the 
yearning of a spiritual nature, and that freedom of will 
which lays the foundation for a just accountability. Not 
that every semblance of good, every kind, and amiable, 
and praiseworthy trait of character had disappeared. 'The 
truth, precisely stated, was that the race had fallen from 
a state of innocence under law, were individually con- 
demned to die, and were so subjected to the power of 
evil propensity and appetite, that the tendency to a 
deeper and deeper degradation was universal and decisive. 
To deny that such was the actual condition of mankind is 
to deny that such a mission as that of the divine Founder 
of Christianity was necessary ; yet more, it is in effect to 


210 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


affirm that it was an uncalled for and mistaken pity that 
moved the eternal Father when he so loved the world as 
to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on 
him might not perish, 

As with right views of the character of Jesus Christ it 
is not to be doubted that he rightly understood the neces- 
sities of those for whose sake he became incarnate, so 
neither can we doubt that in his work for their deliver- 
ance he did precisely what the case demanded. We con- 
clude also, with certainty, that when, on leaving the 
world, he gave it in charge to his disciples to prosecute to 
its full accomplishment the work of the world’s recovery 
to spiritual life and soundness, the means which he 
directed them to use were, in like manner, those which 
would be found most effectual to the end. 

What, then, did the divine Redeemer prescribe as the 
effectual remedy for the sad condition of mankind? He 
simply commanded his apostles to preach the gospel, con- 
necting with this, as we learn by a comparison of texts, 
the two Christian sacraments, by the observance of which 
his followers might be recognised and his Church have an 
organic and visible existence. A wonderful success at- 
tended their faithful obedience to his word. That the 
world is no purer and no happier at this distance of time 
is to be ascribed to the fact that their successors in the 
Christian ministry have not steadily and faithfully fol- 
lowed in their steps. The full experiment of the pre- 
scription has, therefore, never yet been made. It is to be 
made, however. The Christian Church is charged to 
make it, and now deliberately accepts the work; and I 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 211 


design, in the present discourse, to insist on the thought 
which the text, taken in its relations, fairly sets before us 
—that the administration of the gospel and its ordinances 
is the sole hope of the world. 

You will at once perceive that the first step towards a 
just illustration of this topic must be to state explicitly 
what, in our apprehension of the matter, the essential 
gospel is. We say the essenteal gospel, for we suppose 

that the Christian Scriptures set forth many truths of 
great interest in themselves, which yet are not so essenti- 
ally a part of Christianity as a ministration of life, that 
without them it loses its vital power. That is the essen- 
tial gospel, on which, directly and specially, the saving 
energy of Christianity depends. It is the more necessary 
to speak on this point with distinctness, because that in 
the entire freedom of opinion and of speech which is one 
of our national birth-rights, it has sometimes happened of 
late that the deism of Bolingbroke and Hume, and even a 
close approximation to downright atheism, have been pro- 
mulgated from the pulpit and misnamed Christianity. 
But hemlock is still hemlock, though you should choose 
to call it balm ; and if we receive under the name of God’s 
appointed means of life that which in fact is noxious, we 
are sure to find at length that words cannot change the 
reality of things. 

We say, then, distinctly that the gospel which has been 
divinely prescribed as the remedy for the guilt and misery 
of our race is the offer of forgiveness, spiritual renovation, 
and permanent favour with God, on the basis of a redemp- 


tion effected by the incarnation, sufferings, and death of 
14 


212 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the mission and 
agency of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. God can and 
will forgive the penitent. God can and will renew and 
sanctify. God can and will adopt into his family and 
confer all the privileges of sonship. These are the 
primary truths of the essential gospel—these the glad tid- 
ings addressed to the human race as defiled, enslaved, and 
disinherited by sin. Tell these things to the dying, and 
you let in the light of hope.on their dark and despairing 
souls. Give these elementary truths, and from them the 
whole system of doctrine and duty which the New Testa- 
ment expounds may be developed in its completeness and 
proportion. Withhold these and you withhold the real 
gospel, profess to teach it as you may. Though your 
speech be as the melody of waters—though it sparkle 
with the pregnancy of wit, the elegance of learning, and 
the quaintness of conceit—though it arrogate to itself pre- 
eminent independence, originality, and power of argument, 
and profess, ever so confidently, the ability to exalt man- 
kind,—it will, after all, have neither the essence nor the 
energy of genuine Christianity. It may divert men for a 
time, but cannot in the least avail to heal their inward 
maladies ; and their hearts unreached, uncured, will secretly 
bleed on. 

You will notice, also, that the power of the gospel, 
according to the view of its radical truths just given, is an 
internal and spiritual power. It is not a ministry of forms 
addressed to the outward sense; but of purifying and 
restoring influences—of vital energy applied to the disor- 
dered and morally debased and enfeebled soul. In this 


———— ee a 


ee ae ee ee ee ee 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 213 


respect, it differs widely from Judaism, and from the false 
systems which human wisdom, or folly, has contrived, and 
is immeasurably higher and nobler than either the former 
or the latter. To attempt to connect with the admirable 
simplicity of Christian truth, imposing outward pomps 
and ceremonies, is to forget the very genius of Christianity. 
It is just to descend from the sublime elevation on which 
our Lord has placed us by that memorable declaration, 
“ God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship 
him in spirit and in truth,” to the sensuous and every way 
inferior externalism of the legal dispensation. Judaism 
prescribed its gorgeous robes, its rich adornings, and its 
grand processions and pageantries in the worship of Jeho- 
vah. Christianity says simply, “Let all things be done 
decently and in order. Judaism exacted costly offerings ; 
Christianity demands a contrite heart. Judaism pointed the 
conscience-stricken sinner to a material temple, a smoking 
altar, and a sprinkling priest; Christianity bids him 
“behold the Lamb of God!” Judaism made great account 
of a natural descent from Abraham ; Christianity insists 
on being born of the Spirit of God. Judaism was exclu- 
sive, regarding those within its own circle as especially 
admitted to God’s favour; Christianity, in the largeness 
of its charity, declares that God is no respecter of persons, 
but that, everywhere, he that feareth him and worketh 
righteousness isaccepted of him. Judaism accepted, as evi- 
dence of superior piety, a lively zeal for outward observances, 
such as washings, fasts, and feasts ; Christianity instructs 
that genuine piety consists in no such things as these, but 
in righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 


214 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


Such is the gospel asa saving power. It is a leaven 
that works from within outwardly. Its words are spirit 
and life. It is strong in its divine simplicity. It has no 
affinity for imposing rites and ceremonies, and is only 
obstructed and degraded by them. When, therefore, we 
affirm that the gospel and its ordinances are the world’s 
sole hope, we mean to affirm that it is the preaching of 
these simple and divinely energetic truths to which we 
have alluded, accompanied with the two Christian sacra- 
ments, and disencumbered of all unnecessary outward form, 
that is God’s appointed instrumentality, for the raising up 
of debased. humanity to life and virtue, to holiness and 
solid peace. 

With this brief statement of what the gospel is conceived 
to be in its elemental truths, we proceed directly to the 
confirmation of the general statement that in it lies the 
only hope of a sinning and suffering world. 

We here take, as the ground of the whole argument, the 
nature of the evils to be cured. It is true, we apprehend, 
that but few persons, comparatively, even among the most 
thoughtful and enlightened, are accustomed to contemplate 
these evils in their full extent and import. We see and 
admit that the condition of mankind is in many respects 
asad one; but from our infancy we have been familiar 
with all its painful aspects. We have never known by 
experience a happier state than that which we see to be 
the lot of our mortal race at present, and are not able, 
therefore, to judge of what we are, by comparison with 
what we were, or with what we might now have been. 
But suppose we make a thorough examination of the case. 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 215 


Suppose we start the question, with a view to find for our- 
selves an answer, how men compare in character and hap- 
piness with angels, and earth as an abode with heaven. 
At once an appalling disparity appears. In the one case, 
_ everything is perfect, in the other absolutely nothing. But 
why this mighty difference? Whence is it that this world, 
so glorious in its structure and adornings, so radiant with 
the beauty of the Infinite, is not the abode of perfect life 
and joy? As respects their intellectual and moral nature, 
men claim affinity with angels ; why are they not complete 
in their development and blest in their estate, like them ? 
These questions would lead us to the whole melancholy 
truth. We are apt to rest satisfied with the general and 
very vague admission that sin has disturbed the harmony 
which should subsist between God and man, and that it 
may be necessary, by way of preparation for a future life, 
that something should be done to adjust the difference. 
It is, indeed, the prime difficulty in the case, that the indi- 
vidual soul is broken off from God by the transgression of 
his law. It 7s a momentous fact that every human being 
has need to prepare for the retributions of the eternal 
state. But these statements are only a fragment of the 
truth. If we would state the whole, we must say that 
the blighting effects of sin extend to man’s entire nature, 
to all his social and moral relations, and all the circum- 
stances of his being. Nothing in himself, nothing in his 
fellowship with others, nothing in the state of things around 
him, is what it would have been, had he not become a 
sinner. Either really, or in relation to his feelings, every- 


thing is changed. 


216 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


Look, for instance, at the body, that wonderful piece of 
mechanism. Whence its liability to so many derange- 
ments, its infirmities, its pains, its decay, and final dis- 
solution? Because of sin it is condemned to return to 
dust ; and, more or less remotely, it receives the recom- 
pense of irregular appetite and lawless passion in disease 
and suffering , so that while, for aught that appears, it 
might have been always elastic, fresh, and youthful, a fit 
organ for the spirit, it has come to be a shattered and 
perishable thing. Look at the intellectual nature also. It 
seems almost angelic in its constitutional powers ; and 
yet 1.0Ww far 1t 1s, in iact, from a perfect condition and a 
healthful and vigorous activity! It is, in by far the 
greater number of cases, but very imperfectly unfolded 
and disciplined, and in not a few instances is developed 
scarcely at all. It is beclouded with the fogs of prejudice, 
encumbered by biases, cheated by the vagaries of its own 
fancy, duped by superstition, and rendered grovelling by 
sensual inclinations. Look, further still, at the moral 
sensibilities, made to appreciate the morally right, and true, 
and beautiful, with an immediate and just perception, and 
to be delicately susceptible to the impression of moral 
‘obligation. In the great mass of men they are either per- 
verted altogether, or rendered so blunt and torpid that 
they exhibit their proper results but in a very slight degree. 
Observe, finally, the social affections. They were given to 
bind each by tender affinities to all his kind. They were 
intended to originate and maintain sweet charities among 
such as are joined by the ties of kindred, and to spread 
over all the pathways of life an atmosphere of benevolence 


| 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 217 


and love. But what vast portions of mankind in all past 
ages, and in our own as well, have known nothing, or next 
to nothing, of the pleasures of pure friendship, nothing of 
domestic joys ; but have lived in social discord and cor- 
ruption, possessed with evil passions, and being destroyers 
of each other’s peace. Remember we are speaking of | 
mankind in their natural condition ; as Christianity has 
found them, not as it has made them when it has been 
cordially received. No one, certainly, who is acquainted 
with the history, or the present condition of mankind, can 
hesitate to admit that man is spiritually estranged from 
God; and that, in body, in intellect, in his moral sensi- 
bilities, in his natural affections, in short, throughout his 
entire being and his whole condition in the world, he 
suffers the effects of sin, and is subject to its power. 

Yes, go where paganism has had its seat, where the 
dogmas of false prophets and religionists have wrought 
out their results, where sensuous pomps and human tra- 
ditions have corrupted and obscured the truth, and where 
infidelity, with its boast of superior wisdom, has cast out 
faith of every kind; and there will be found in all these 
circumstances a moral degradation of humanity which 
reaches into every sphere of its activity, and penetrates 
every ramification of its interests. It is only a literal 
truth—except so far as the influence of Christianity has 
been practically felt—that the whole creation groaneth 
and travaileth in pain together until now. The splendid 
civilizations of antiquity were only gilded aggregations of 
individual and social profligacy, and literally rotted in 
their own corruptions, The immensely populous nations 


21S. | THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


of modern Asia are sunk in a debasement so complete 
that but few traces of anything really noble in our nature 
are exhibited among them. Africa, taken altogether, is if 
possible in yet a worse condition. Even in the most 
favoured portions of Europe and America, how vast the 
amount of such evils as result from moral degeneracy are 
yet to be removed before any near approximation to a state 
of general well-being can be reached! We refer here only 
to facts which, to all well-informed persons, are ae 
familiar. 

The bearing of these acknowledged facts, it will be seen, 
is this. The mischiefs which sin has wrought, both in 
separating the individual soul from God, and in deranging 
the whole economy of human society and human life, are 
plainly so great, so general, so deep-seated, and inveterate, 
that there is not the smallest reason to think that the 
race ever would, or ever could, indeed, restore and purify 
itself, In the nature of the case, there is a plain neces- 
sity that some remedy should be applied of far mightier 
efficacy than belongs to any of those that lie within the 
range of man’s own feeble powers. He could never, for 
himself, make peace with God, nor break from his own — 
neck the miserable yoke of sin, nor regulate the conflicting 
moral elements within him, nor wake in his soul those pure 
desires which alone could bear him on to a real exaltation. 

In accordance with this reasoning from the nature of 
human wants, is the important fact which we now notice, 
in the next place, that every attempt permanently to elevate 
and bless mankind by merely human instrumentalities and 
efforts has resulted in disastrous failure. Experiment on 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 219 


experiment has been made. Never finding rest, but always 
hke the troubled sea, humanity has reached in this direc- 
tion and in that, and has had recourse to a variety of 
means in order to elevate itself. When individual man, 
oppressed with a sense of his own sad state, scourged by 
conscience, weary with the chase of shadows, pining with 
the hunger of an empty craving heart, has sought for some 
effectual relief, philosophy has discoursed to him saga- 
ciously of the swmmum bonum! She has led him, won- 
dering and bewildered, through all her subtle mazes ; has 
perhaps amused him with beautiful theories of morals ; but 
she has left him, in the end, as unsatisfied and wretched 
as before, because, failing, utterly, to give him what he 
wanted. False systems of religion have put him at the 
task of gaining inward peace by the voluntary subjection 
of himself to outward suffering. On this track he has 
fled from the face of his fellow-men. In the depths of the 
lonely wilderness, or in the murky caves of unfrequented 
mountains, he has fixed his cheerless dwelling. He has 
spread his pallet with thorns and lacerated his flesh with 
knotted scourges; has watched, fasted, and mortified even 
his innocent desires ; and stifling the pleadings of nature 
in his heart, has sacrificed his own children to avert appre- 
hended wrath and purchase inward peace. But has he 
gained his object by such means? He may have quieted 
in some degree the accusings of a bewildered and per- 
verted conscience; but has he made himself a happy, a 
complete, and morally exalted being? Never. Every 
‘such expedient has proved vain. 

Nor has legislation ever been found effectual for the 


220 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


relief and the moral culture of mankind. It has, indeed, 
accomplished many useful things. It has studied with 
attention, and often no doubt profoundly, the problems 
that concern the well-being of society. It has digested 
codes of laws and arranged the details of administration, 
with great sagacity and labour; and has tried now this 
experiment of political economy, and now that. It has 
striven to balance the conflicting powers and to harmonize 
thediscordant passions and interests of the various classes 
that compose the state. It has prescribed to men their 
style of dress, their recreations, their secular pursuits, their 
divinities and modes of worship. But, after all, the good 
effects of legislation have been extremely limited in com- 
parison with the evils to be remedied ; and revolutions, 
anarchies, and popular debasement, have too often inter- 
rupted its action and defeated its designs. So in regard 
to other similar agencies. Poetry and eloquence have 
essayed to refine individual man and to elevate the aims 
and the spirit of society. They have sought to accomplish 
this by presenting to the thought ideal beauty and per- 
fection; by thrilling the sensibilities with the flow of har- 
monious numbers; by stirring the deep emotions of the 
soul to high enthusiasm, and urging it to lofty undertak- 
ings by the force of sweet persuasion. Something has 
doubtless been achieved by these and kindred agencies, at 
certain times and to a moderate extent; yet they have 
been, at best, but as stars above a stormy ocean, that shed 
some gleams of light upon the surface, but have not power 
to penetrate its depths, and still less to lull its agitations 
to repose. . 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 22) 


In what is here asserted we are sustained by the voice 
of universal history. Its explicit testimony is, that while 
the causes to which we have referred, and others like them, 
have had an important influence on human things, they 
have never been able, either separately or combined, to 
raise and purify, and generally and effectually to bless 
mankind. . This is the melancholy record for all nations 
and for every age. The thousand sages and moralists of 
ancient and modern times may have conceived and spoken 
well on many points of doctrine and of duty. But what 
then? They spoke, it is certain, without authority to give 
weight to their instructions ; without simplicity to render 
them intelligible ; without the certainty that what they 
taught was true; and without that adaptation to the hearts 
and consciences, to the nature and the wants of men, 
which alone could give them access to the unreflecting 
multitude. The Jeromes, the Antonies, and the Basils of 
corrupt Christianity, the ascetics of Persia, and the further 
Kast, may be allowed to have uttered just and useful pre- 
cepts on deadness to the world and religious retirement 
and meditation. But the attempt to impart true spiritual 
life and peace to the souls of men by such methods as they 
exemplified and recommended, was always found to be as 
futile in experiment as it was absurd in its idea. The 
Solons and Numas, the Justinians and Alfreds, of all 
ages, have certainly exhibited great practical wisdom, and 
often, perhaps, have done all that the nature of the case 
admitted, in giving laws and framing constitutions. But 
the fact is undeniable, that human passion has proved to 
be beyond the control of laws. By no fault of theirs as 


999 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


statesmen and legislators, it has laughed to scorn their 
nicely adjusted systems, and the floods of licentiousness 
have gone over their checks and barriers, and have swept 
them all away. The masses of mankind have neither been 
lifted from their debasement nor made happy by their 
labours.” With the fact before us that the great masters 
of eloquence and poetry have breathed forth glorious 
utterances, words of beauty and of power that have em- 
bodied noble thoughts and have sounded through the ages, 
the other fact, that they have been appreciated, and even 
recognised only by the comparatively few, is also too plain 
to be denied. This unequivocal testimony of all history, 
that the illustrious individual men of different ages, who, 
from their personal endowments, or the eminence of their 
position, have seemed most likely to succeed in the attempt 
to elevate and purify mankind, have never in reality suc- 
ceeded ; and that the advancement of the race has been 
mainly in connection with Christianity, at once demon- 
strates the insufficiency of merely human means, and 
makes it plain that if there is any hope at all that the 
world will ever be brought to a state of general virtue, 
intelligence, and happiness, Christianity in its essential 
truths, in other words, the simple gospel of Jesus Christ, 
must furnish the ground on which it rests. 

We reach, then, at this point, the third part of the 
argument ; wherein we have to show that the gospel, as 
prescribed by the Son of God, does in fact embody in it 
all the elements of moral power that are required in order 
to the raising of the whole family of man to an exalted 
and happy state. To exhibit this part of the subject fully 


) 


; 
4 
5 
2 
1 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 223 


would occupy far more time and room than are now 
allowed us. We can only suggest the material points, and 
this in the fewest words. 

What then are, let us inquire, the elements of moral 
power demanded in an agency, that it may effectually 
reach the case in which mankind are found? 

To present the matter in the simplest possible way, we 
answer—that the things required in order to the recovery 
of sinful’ men are GRACE, LOVE, and the SPIRITUAL 
‘ENERGY which shall give these their appropriate influence 
on the heart. In other words, the instrumentality which 
would restore sinful humanity to peace, and purity, and 
‘elevated life, must be able first to relieve the conscience 
from the burden of guilt which past transgressions have 
imposed, and then to draw its affections toward holiness 
and make them to centre on God as the infinitely Holy. 
It must assure of full release from the curse of sin which 
rests upon the soul, and of complete and final rescue from 
the slavery of sin in which it is involved. 

We say, then, that the gospel of Jesus Christ does come 
to the heart of man in all the power of free and abounding 
grace. It comes, that is, with the full and specific offer 
of unqualified forgiveness on the part of God for past 
iniquities. It has always been just here that all mere 
human devices for the elevation of the world have revealed 
their worthlessness. They could not meet the soul’s first 
want. They could not utter a word, with any certainty, 
as to whether there could be any such thing as pardon for 
transgression. But go to human beings where and when 
you will, and speak to them of God and duty, and the 


294 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


moment you can gain attention and can bring home to the 
mind a clear conviction of the obligation of God’s law, 
that moment you find a burden on the conscience that 
presses like a millstone. “Oh, my sins! my sins! I feel 
that they deserve a heavy judgment. They cover me 
with shame and fill me with foreboding. God is pure— 
infinitely pure; I dare not even lift up my eyes to him, for 
the overpowering splendour of his holiness flashes on the 
darkness of my soul like a devouring fire! What shall I 
do? Whither shall I fly? I deserve the displeasure of 
the eternally Good whom I have so causelessly abused ! 
This weight upon my heart must crush me, for I cannot 


roll it off!” Such, for substance, is the language of every . 


awakened conscience. Will you offer to such a man an 
ingenious speculation, a plausible conjecture, the perform- 
ance of a penance or a ceremony, an outward reformation, 
or any similar expedient, as a relief? You may as well 
propose to amuse with idle tales the wretch that writhes 
upon a bed of torture. But, hark! the word “ ForcryE- 
ness!” “God can and will forgive the penitent!” pro- 
claims the gospel. “Can he? Will he?” cries the op- 
pressed, despairing soul. “ Glad tidings! glad tidings !— 
then there is hope—there is hope forme!” And when 
he is pointed to Christ crucified, to an atoning Saviour, to 
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, 
his soul is stirred to its lowest depths to find that his first 
great want—that of deliverance from merited condemna- 
tion—is, by the grace which the gospel offers him, most 
fully met. 

But the work of entire recovery is as yet but half 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 225 


accomplished. Let the Ethiopian change his skin and the 
leopard his spots, then may they also who are accustomed 
to do evil learn to do well. The power of disordered 
appetite and inclination is a mighty power. The chains of 
sinful habit are like chains of triple brass. The apathy of 
blunted moral feeling is like the drowsiness of a Lethean 
stupor. The law of sin, in the members, brings the whole 
man into captivity to the power of sin. In addition to for- 
giveness, therefore, the case of the sinful soul demands 
something which can evolve within a moral force, a vital 
spring of action which shall have energy enough to conquer 
fixed propensity and lawless passion, to wake into activity 
the moral affections and change their habitual current,— 
in a word, to emancipate the moral man. 

Just what the case requires the gospel offers. It pre- 
sents, in objective facts, to the understanding and the 
heart the riches of an infinite love in God, and reveals the 
certainty of an inward subjective ministry of the Divine 
Spirit for the renovation of the soul. The gospel, where- 
ever it goes, at once makes known, and is attended by, a 
special vitalizing spiritual influence, which is to the obdu- 
rate, unfeeling heart on which it falls what the sunshine 
and the genial showers are to the cold, hard, barren earth 
—a softening, life-producing agency. Then it exhibits 
God himself as stooping to redeem! That very Being 
against whom sin has been committed it reveals as full of 
compassion towards the sinner—so full of pure, paternal, 
yes, more than paternal love, that since he might not other- 
wise fitly spare the sinner, he spared not his own Son, but 
gave him freely for the world, that whosoever should be- 


\ 


226 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


lieve on him might have eternal life. It presents that Sun 
as voluntarily leaving the glory which he had with the 
Father before the world was; as being made flesh 3 as de- 
scending to the condition of a servant; as being despised 
and rejected of men ; as enduring inward agony beyond de- 
scription in the garden, although himself sinless and pure ; 
as making his soul an offering for sin, the one sacrifice, of 


which all Jewish victims were but types,-—or as he him-- 


self expressed it, as shedding his blood for many for the re- 
mission of sins. It makes known the Father as receiving, 
through the mediation of the Son, all, even the chief of 
sinners, who believe in and accept him, into the estage and 
privileges of his holy family, and to the heirship of his 
eternal love and blessing. 

This, then, is the wonderful economy of man’s redemp- 
tion, as devised and executed by that very goodness which 
human sin has dishonoured and abused. These are the 
heights and depths of a love towards the guilty which is 
immeasurable and infinite. The inflexibleness of eternal 
justice, and the yearning of eternal mercy, are together un- 
folded to rebellious men. Whatever is grand and awful in 
unbending devotion to the right—whatever is sweet and 
winning in benevolence that is spontaneous and pure— 
whatever is admirable in condescension—whatever is 
touching in suffering borne by a free self-sacrifice for the 
sake of the undeserving—whatever is lovely and noble in 
the goodness that receives and embraces the guilty who 
are penitent,—God in Christ exhibits to the world in the 
simple yet stupendous facts which constitute the gospel. 
When these facts, by the power of the Divine Spirit, are so 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 227 


effectually set home on the hearts of sinful men that they 
are seen and felt in somewhat of their proper force and 
import, the rocky heart is melted into tenderness, the re- 
sisting will is finally subdued, the power of sin is broken, 
and there is opened a fountain in the deep recesses of the 
soul, from which thenceforward there gushes up a tide of 
holy love to God, and to all that is truly excellent and 
pure. This is the living water, of which the Saviour said, 
it shall be in the soul a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life. It is, in fact, a new, spiritual, progressive, 
and immortal life begun—a life that has energy enough to 
raise up from its ruins man’s originally God-like nature, to 
adorn it with every moral grace and virtue, and restore it 
to its pristine glory. Such power is in the cross of Christ. 
Such is the moral efficacy of that gospel, the sum and sub- 
stance of which is Christ crucified—a revelation of grace, 
and love, and regenerating power. Neither subjectively 
nor objectively is any provision needful to mankind, in 
their state of sin and suffering, that the gospel does not 
bring them. 

If scepticism denies what it has been our purpose to 
maintain, we have only to appeal to undeniable facts in 
the history of Christianity. We have already seen that 
every human device has failed to recover mankind from the 
debasement and misery of sin. But has the gospel failed 
in a single instance in which it has been fairly tried? 
Where is the individual, where is the community, or the 
nation, that has practically received the Christian religion, 
that has not been elevated, and made virtuous and happy 


exactly in proportion to the thoroughness and cordiality 
15 


228 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE 


of the reception? Where are now found, in all the world, 
the highest excellences of private character, the best dis- 
charge of social duties, the greatest amount of public: 
order, intelligence, and virtue, the largest measure, in short, 
of everything that charms and adorns existence here, or 
qualifies for higher scenes of being—where but in those 
favoured places in which the simple truths of uncorrupted 
Christianity are most impressed on the minds of men? 
It cannot be denied that evangelical truth has made the 
world to bloom wherever it has found a way. It has 
made good men and great men without number. It has 
filled millions, in every walk in life, with a calm and abid- 
ing peace, in spite of all the storms, and wrestlings, and 
sorrows that belong to an evil world; and has sent them, 
victors over death, to people the eternal paradise of God. 
The experience of all time declares the essential gospel of 
Jesus Christ to be universally the power of God unto sal- 
vation to every one that believeth. It is, therefore, to be 
distinctly recognised and used as the sole hope of a 
fallen world. 

Whoever, then, is the enemy of genuine Christianity is, 
it is plain, the enemy of mankind. Whoever attempts to 
weaken its authority or obstruct its progress among men, 
not only assails the best hopes, the highest welfare 
of the world’s future, but does what in him lies to consign 
that future to wretchedness and guilt without relief, The 
ever-renewed attempts to overthrow the religion of the 
New Testament, whether originating in pride of intellect, 
in the blindness of an unbelieving heart, or in direct and 
conscious hostility to truth and goodness, are all indeed 


HOPE OF THE WORLD. 999 


futile. The truth of God will ever stand, as it has stood, 
unshaken, to the confusion of those that war against it. 
But such will reveal themselves as the foes of human 
happiness, as wanting the spirit of God’s kingdom, and as, 
whether intentionally or not, the allies of the prince of 
darkness. Who would not shrink from assuming this 
position ? 

If, then, you hold the welfare of the world as dear-—if 
you would wish to put an end to the groans which, 
through the ages past, it has been sending up to heaven— 
if you would desire that the day of which prophets have 
foretold such glorious things may come, when joy and glad- 
ness, as the fruit of purity and love, of order, freedom, and 
general intelligence and piety, shall reign through all the 
earth—if you would be yourselves benefactors of your 
species, while exalted and made happy in your own 
persons, accept heartily and practically the gospel as 
it is, in its simple yet momentous facts, and do your 
utmost while you live to bring others to feel its blessed 


power. 

“Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts, 
Explains all mysteries except her own, 
And so illuminates the path of life, 

That fools discover it, and stray no more. 

Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir, 

My man of morals, nurtured in the shades 

Of Academus—is this false or true? 

Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools? 

If Christ, then why resort at every turn 

To Athens, or to Rome, for wisdom short 

Of man’s occasions, when in Him reside 

Grace, knowledge, comfort—an unfathomed store?” 


Yes, it is time, indeed, to abandon the poor folly of 


230 THE GOSPEL THE SOLE HOPE, ETC. 


seeking in the wisdom and the power of man what is 
only to be found in the wisdom and the power of God in 
Jesus Christ—relief from the’ guilt that crushes and 
enslaves humanity, and from the woes, individual and 
social, temporal and eternal, which sin has made the sad 
inheritance of our self-ruined race. Christ is the Light of 
the world, and in him is the Life of men. His gospel is 
the world’s sole hope. 


GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 231 


XIV, 
Gov to be chosen vs a Guide. 


JER. iii. 4: “ Wilt thow not from this time cry wnto me, My Father, 
thou art the guide of my youth?” 


dhe period of youth, consider it in whatever light we will, 

is full of interest. Itis the period of comparative free- 
dom from the contaminations of an evil world. It is the 
season of happy impulses, of glowing hopes, of high aspira- 
tions, of sincere and warm affections, of free and generous 
confidence, and, in general, of the virtues that are most 
lovely and the manners that are most engaging. It is 
also the morning of life’s day—the still lake out of which 
issues its rushing stream—the gate-way to its arena—the 
seed-time for its harvests of good orill. To all who have 
come to know by experience what life actually is, and who 
have seriously pondered its vast and solemn responsibilities, 
a group of young persons just advancing to maturity is 
one of the most interesting sights to be met with in the 
world. ! 

It is especially so to the true minister of Christ. He 
watches for the souls of all, as one that must give an ac- 
count. But he sees in those who are on the threshold of 
active life the opening buds of the garden which he has it 
in charge to cultivate and keep. He comprehends their 
relation to the future, and from his peculiar position he has 


232 GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 


a clearer and more impressive view than most others are 
hkely to have of their special circumstances and their 
perils. As he stands upon his watch-tower, and sees them 
with cheerful looks and hopeful:spirits coming forward to 
meet life’s inevitable toils and dangers, he is like one who, 
posted on some headland, looks abroad ona new and well- 
rigged fleet, that, with snowy canvas and streamers sport- 
ing with the wind, freighted with precious treasures and 
manned with noble hearts, is just issuing from the port 
and putting forth on the stormy sea. It isimpossible for 
such a person not to look onward from this fair array to 
the scene which will present itSelf when the howling tem- 
pest has done its desolating work. Many a good ship will 
then lie an unsightly wreck, many a.one will have gone 
down into the unknown deep, some will have been left 
crippled and scarcely better than destroyed, and only a 
few of the whole number will have safely weathered the 
fearful buffetings, and accomplished the objects of the 
voyage. Or the Christian pastor, while he surveys the 
youth around: him, may be likened to an officer who is 
marshalling the young and brave, and preparing them, by 
proper discipline, to go forth to the contests of the field. 
Such a one looks now only on freshness, strength, and 
beauty. He admires the light and graceful movement, the 
well-adjusted trappings, and more than all, the lofty ardour 
of his band. But then he looks forward, with prophetic 
glance, to the day succeeding battle. He sees only a 
remnant of all his goodly company escaped safe from the 
deadly struggle. Many have fallen in the carnage and 
have perished. Many are wounded to linger on and die 


GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 233 


Many will live only to suffer all their days from the loss of 
limbs, or other enduring injurics. Can it be otherwise 
than that when the watchman for souls sees those of his 
charge who are yet in early years just putting forth on 
life’s eventful sea, or, according to the other illustration, 
just girding on the harness for the great life-battle 
through which they are to pass, he should regard them 
with a yearning heart, and should offer for them his eav- 
nest prayers, and give to them such counsels as his own 
experience and observation, and more especially the word 
of God, suggest ? 

It is, my younger friends, with deep interest that I 
think of you, and look on you from week to week. For 
you, with sincerity I hope, I do habitually bow the knee 
to the Father of all mercies, beseeching him to bless and 
save you; and to you, to you in a special manner, I bring 
his gracious message. The great God, your Father and 
my Father, in his super-abounding goodness, does virtually 
address each of you in the language of the text. You 
may rightly take, as if addressed immediately to you, this 
touching appeal to Israel of old,—“ Wilt thou not from this 
time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my 
youth?” I would, if possible, assist you to decide the 
question thus proposed. In doing this, I will ask you to 
consider the need in which you stand of guidance, the 
wisdom of making God your guide, and the fitness of 
the present as the time in which to receive him in that 
character. 

I say then, first of all, that you do greatly need some 
aithful and effective guidance in the shaping of your lives. 


| 


234 GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 


The need is at once obvious and pressing. It rests upon 
so many grounds, that in any attempt to state them, the 
only difficulty lies in being brief. Some of them, how- 
ever, I will notice. 

You need such guidance because the path of duty and 
of safety is often exceedingly difficult to find. The great 
principles on which every person is bound to act in the 
ordering of his life, are indeed well settled. They are 
authoritatively delivered in the Scriptures, are assented to 
by reason and conscience, and have been confirmed and 
ilustrated by experience. The principles to which I here 
refer are the general principles of moral duty—-as, for 
example, that we should acknowledge the existence and 
perfection of God; that we should love him first and best 
of all, and our neighbours as ourselves; together with the 
common laws of prudence,—such as that intelligence, in- 
dustry, economy, forethought, and the like, are necessary 
conditions of success, and of safety and happiness in 
living. In respect to these there need be no perplexity. 
But with you, as capable of reflection, of judgment, and of 
choice, is left the responsibility of making the application 
of these principles in all the practical details of life. In 
every important step, almost at every hour of every day, 
you are obliged to raise the questions—Is this right? Is 
this wrong? Is this true? Is this expedient? Is this 
safe?—-and then immediately to decide and act on your 
decision. Often when determining what you are bound 
to accept as duty or to receive as truth, you have many 
circumstances to consider, many probahilities to estimate, 
many opposing arguments to weigh. You are aware that 


Te ee ere! 


GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 235 


the most trifling actions, or those that seem such, are often 
followed by most momentous consequences, and so you 
‘are at a loss to know how much importance to attach to 
what you do. In short, while the general direction in 
which you are to move, if you intend to live wisely, is 
obvious enough, you may still find perplexities at every 
point, to extricate yourselves from which will try, perhaps 
even baffle, your utmost wisdom. The wrong ways are a 
thousand, the right way is but one. The wrong looks 
often like the right, the right often like the wrong. Who 
is sufficient for these things? Who of you can trust 
himself,—can venture to take his way unaided through 
all the mazes of the labyrinth of life, to shape his own 
course, amidst treacherous shoals and hidden rocks, across 
the mighty sea? You cannot seriously consider the difii- 
culty you must find in determining your way without 
perceiving clearly that you need effectual guidance. 

You need such guidance, also, because your own strong 
impulses are likely to mislead you. We had occasion in 
a preceding discourse, and in another connection, to notice 
the fact that the natural appetites and passions, and the 
desires and propensities which choice and habit have 
created, may exert a very great influence on the judgment. 
This is true, not only in deciding between truth and false- 
hood, but as well in deciding between right and wrong. 
It is easy to believe that to be right or useful which 
accords with inclination. It is hard to think that to be 
obligatory, or best, to which the feelings are averse, and 
which involves the necessity of painful self-denial. Let 
two paths lie before the weary traveller, the one of which 


236 GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 


leads smoothly along the plain, while the other climbs the 
rugged steep, and he is strongly predisposed to believe 
the more agreeable the right. 

Now, although it is certainly true, in an important sense 
that Wisdom’s ways are pleasantness, and all her paths 
are peace, it is by no means true that all her ways are 
agreeable to present inclination, or the bent of the sinful 
heart. You will find often that appetite and passion will 
plead against the plain and positive demands of duty ; 
and it will require a strong resistance to overcome this 
pleading and to make a choice against all selfish impulses, 
in obedience to conscience. How great, then, the embarrass- 
ment which the desire of self-indulgence must many times 
occasion, when duty is not plain, but doubtful, and you 
have it to determine! How easily, in such circumstances, 
may the impulses of feeling pervert the understanding, 
~ and so make the worse appear the better reason as to lead 
you utterly astray! Is it not nearly certain, since you 
form your decisions in the affairs of every day under such 
misleading influences, that without some wise guidance 
you will be drawn aside from duty and from peace; that 
you will be led into the pursuit of some of the thousand 
phantoms, ; 

“That lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind’? — 
and which, after dancing for a while before the eye, on a 
sudden grow dim and disappear? Such a result would 
seem to be inevitable. 

Still further, you need guidance in the shaping of your 
lives, because there are many who will studiously seek 
your ruin. It is hard always to make the young believe 


a a ee 


GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 237 


this; yet sooner or later experience brings conviction of 
the fact. There are found even in the best conditions of 
society the openly debased and vicious. They have bro- 
ken away from moral restraint and disowned the authority 
of conscience. They have given full dominion to appetite 
and lust. Like the master whom they have given them- 
selves to serve, they have said in their hearts— 
“Byil, be thou my good;” 

and like him, they go about continually seeking whom 
they may devour. Having learned to be unscrupulously 
immoral, or even impious, and unblushingly to glory in 
their shame, they are ready to make others as shameless 
as themselves: not that they boldly avow this as their 
object,—if they did this, the danger were comparatively 
small,—but by their spirit and example, they first taint 
the moral atmosphere around those whom they are desir- 
ous to corrupt, and then gradually draw them, by one 
artifice and another, down to their own pollution. 

Besides the grossly wicked, there are many others who 
will seek to reach you with influences fitted to destroy 
your virtuous sentiments, and principles, and your ulti- 
mate well-being. There are many not openly corrupt, 
who are utterly corrupt in heart. While they exhibit, 
perhaps, respectable outward morals, this class of persons 
will either distinctly advocate, or covertly let fall, the most 
loose and pernicious maxims and opinions. If possible, 
they will infuse into your minds their own dreary scepti- 
cism, their light estimate of serious things, and especially 
their contempt for the piety and conscientiousness of 
decidedly religious men. By such methods, though retain- 


238 GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 


ing themselves some outward show of respect for goodness, 
they will try to sap all the foundations of goodness in your 
heart.» It is difficult to say which is the more dangerous 
to encounter—those who are unblushingly wicked in their 
lives, or those whose depravity is artful and concealed. 

Through such enemies to your virtue and peace, and 
others which need not be particularly described, you have 
to make your way. To avoid them is impossible. To 
escape their influence and to elude their artifices is often 
extremely difficult. When least suspecting danger, your 
feet may be entangled in their net. Qh, who that com- 
prehends how much he has at stake, can help trembling, 
when he thinks that so many and such deadly foes beset 
all the path of life he is to tread! Can any young person, 
who seriously reflects on his position,.doubt that he greatly 
needs some friendly direction on his way? If, then, we 
also add the great revealed truth, that the prince and 
powers of darkness are likewise ever watching to allure 
your feet into the ways of death, new grounds of appre- 
hension are supplied which make the need to appear more 
urgent still. 

I will only mention further, that your need of guidance 
is strongly set forth in the melancholy fact that so many 
are continually ruined. Where many fall, there is reason 
that all should fear. Look, then, at facts, which are 
offered on all sides to your notice, in illustration of the 
perils that beset you. Or if you will take a wider view, 
apply to those whose opportunities and experience have 
been greater than your own. Go to some man now past 
the meridian of life, whose character and habits, with the 


bat 


eS a a 


GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 239 


* divine blessing, have made him honoured and successful. 
He was one of a band, more or less numerous, who set out 
in life together. They came forth from their homes and 
from the schoolroom differing, perhaps, but little either in 
their talents or acquirements. Ask him to tell you where 
those his early associates are now, and what he remembers 
of their history. Ah! how painful the recollection and 
the recital! One, he will say, as he brings back the half- 
forgotten past, looked on the wine when it was red, and 
he went early to the drunkard’s grave. Another yielded 
to the love of vain display; and after a brief career of 
brilliant folly and extravagance, he passed by bankruptcy 
to poverty, and was soon forgotten by the world. A third 
indulgéd, at first, in some trifling dishonesty, and then 
was led on till he became a villain, and finally went to 
prison, or to an ignominious death. A fourth gave loose 
to sensual appetite; and then from impurity of thought 
and word, he went on step by step, till he suffered the 
miseries, and met at last the fate of the worn-out profli- 
gate. A fifth was taken in the gambler’s snare, and fell 
by suicide. A sixth—but why should I go on? So daily 
-perish, on life’s broad arena, the hopes of fathers and of 
mothers! So sink into the depths of shame and ruin 
many who should have shone as brilliant stars in the galaxy 
of intellect—should have found a place among the noblest 
spirits that have ever done honour to humanity and 
climbed the enviable heights of fair renown. The road- 
side of life is all whitened with the bones of the multi- 
tudes who have fallen thus, having made, by their own mis- 
steps, an utter wreck of their hopes, their characters, and 


240 GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 


their all. With such evidence of the perils of your future, # 
can you doubt your need of some friendly hand to lead you? 

Let us pass on, then, in the second place, to insist on 
the reasonableness, the wisdom of making God your 
guide. On this part of the subject I must be compara- 
tively brief. A thousand reasons might easily be men- 
tioned why every young person, whatever may be his 
particular position, should look up with a filial spirit unto 
God, and cry, “My Father, tHou art the guide of my 
youth.” I must content myself, however, with two which 
seem to be the chief, and which may in some sort com- 
prehend the rest, or at least suggest them. 

The first is, that you owe tt to God himself thus to 
honour him with your confidence. It is his right to expect 
it of you. That your hearts should be directed towards 
him, that you should recognise him as the Fountain of all 
wisdom, as the providential Director of events, as the 
Father of your spirits, and the benevolent Guardian of 
your welfare, and should commit yourselves to the leading 
of his will,—all necessarily results from the fact that he 
is what he is, God over all, the perfection of being, the 
essence and centre of all goodness. Since he is such a- 
Being, he is in the highest degree competent to guide you. 
He most perfectly understands the constitution of your 
nature, for he made it what it is. He knows every spring 
of thought, feeling, and desire, and every avenue by which 
either good or evil influence can find access to your heart. 
When the line of duty is obscure and you are troubled in 
spirit with perplexity and doubt, he can make light to 
break in upon you as when the morning dawns in beauty 


GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 24] 


upon the night. When passion is restless and clamours 
for indulgence, he can so breathe his Spirit on you, as to 
hush all the tumult of the soul to peace. When wicked 
men and wicked spirits are watching around you with 
intent to destroy you, if they can, he can put over you 
the shield of his almightiness, and defend you from every 
device by which they would work you ill. Thus qualified 
to afford you the very guidance that you need, when out 
of pure good-will to you he condescends to offer it, can it 
be doubtful whether it is due to him that you should 
gratefully accept the offer? Not to do it is to treat him 
with dishonour. That you have not done it hitherto, if 
indeed you have failed to do it, has given him reason to 
say in reference to you, as he said in respect.to Israel by 
the prophet, “If I then be a Father, where is now mine 
honour?” | 

The second reason which ought to determine you to 
take God to be your guide is this, that God alone can 
afford you a sufficient guidance. That he is able to grant 
you an effectual safe-conduct, has just now been observed. 
But where can you find another to whose care and leading 
you can safely and without anxiety commit the infinitely 
precious interests of your being? Do you think of 
parents? Have you a parent who is wise enough and 
strong enough to guide and keep you in all: the emergen- 
cies of life, and who is also omnipresent? Will you choose 
your favourite teacher, or the moralist, or the philosopher 
you most admire? Believe it, you will find when the 
hour of trial comes, that you can as soon light up black 
midnight with a taper, or defend yourselves against wild 


242 GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 


beasts with straws, as solve your gloomy doubts and 
make your safety sure by any such assistance. Will you 
rely on your own reason to conduct you? And so did 
thousands who now groan beneath the hopeless wreck of 
ruined happiness and ruined souls! No, no, my youthful 
friends ; neither will any human wisdom, nor any human 
aid, be found equal to your need. Learn all you can from 
the counsels of. wise parents. Despise not the teachings 
of the schools, nor the lessons of true philosophy. De- 
velop your own reason and listen to its voice. But trust 
in none of these as your grand reliance. God alone can 
be your sufficient guide. 

It only remains, therefore, in the third place, to consider 
the question of time. When should God’s offered guidance 
be accepted? May it be accepted now? We wish to 
insist on the fitness of securing it at once. “Wilt thou not 
from this time cry unto me?” Such is the divine demand. 

The fact that the present is a practicable time—a time 
in which, without hindrance, God may be intelligently and 
cordially accepted as a guide—is in itself a proof that it 
is a proper time. If you are ever to enjoy God’s guidance 
—ever to have him lead you through the trials and the 
perils of the wilderness of life, it must be by your own 
deliberate and hearty act. At some specific time you 
must cry to him for the purpose of expressing your desire. ° 
Humbly, earnestly, and as one that cannot do without ite 
you must ask at his hands the blessing which you want. 
What, then, is there to forbid the immediate presentation 
of your suit? You are now in the enjoyment of health 
and reason, with nothing to prevent you from attending 


-< 


GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 243 


to the matter intelligently and calmly. On the part of 
God there is nothing to hinder your free approach to the 
mercy-seat, and nothing to shut out your request. Around 
you is the holy stillness of the Sabbath, and all the sweet 
and sacred influences of the Christian sanctuary; so that 
if you are really disposed to take your gracious Father as 
your guide in this auspicious hour, there is nothing to 
oppose. You may now secure this inestimable good. This 
hour of grace is therefore a fit, because a most favourable 
time. 

Still further, the present time is the very time that God 
himself proposes: “ Remember now thy Creator.” So 
everywhere throughout the Scriptures. It is always in the 
present, and never in the future, that he issues his com- 
mands and holds out his invitations. This makes your 
duty plain. Suppose that some person of distinction had 
proposed to grant you a great favour, to receive which you 
were to call on him at his dwelling. If he had specified 
no time at which you should present yourself, you might 
naturally feel solicitude lest you should disoblige him by 
calling at an inconvenient hour. But he himself has pre- 
cisely fixed the time. Then surely you can feel no embar- 
rassment whatever. No hour can be so suitable as that 
which he has named. The case is just the same in the 
matter now before us. In offering himself to you, as 
a kind, a faithful, and an all-sufficient guide, the Father 
of all mercy is pleased to name the time in which you 
may accept the benefit. What other time, let me demand of 
you, can be so fit as this present passing hour which he has 


specified ? “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me?” 
16 


244 GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 


But this is not all. It is at this present time that your 
need of the blessing in question is becoming manifest and 
urgent. The difficulties and the dangers that create the 
need are not remote, but are now actually at hand. If it 
is true that they are likely to thicken as you go forward, 
it is true also that they are already numerous and formid- | 
able enough. Plainly it is here, at the very opening of 
life’s great and momentous scene, at that stand-point from 
which there are so many divergent paths, that it is espe- 
cially fit that you should choose your guide. You want 
now his friendly offices, that you may not start wrong in 
the race. You want them now, that you may not waste 
in bewilderment and error the choicest, freshest, palmiest 
days of your existence, or, stumbling at the outset, be pre- 
cipitated to an untimely and fatal fall. Is it not pre- 
eminently fit that you should now take hold of God’s 
conducting hand, since it is at this time that it will be 
most signally a blessing to you to be directed by it ? 

Finally, the fact that the present may not improbably 
be the only time in which you will have it in your power 
to secure the divine guidance, affords yet another illustra- 
tion of the fitness of the opportunity now afforded. You 
remember what the Scriptures say of those who have re- 
jected God’s advances: “Because I have called, and ye 
refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man re- 
garded ; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and 
would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your 
calamity ; I will mock when your fear cometh ; when your 
fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as 


a whirlwind ; when distress and anguish come upon you : 


GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 945 


then shall ye call upon me, but I will not answer; ye shall 
seek me early, but ye shall not find me ; for that ye hated 
instruction, and did not choose the fear of the Lord.” 
Appalling words! A very brief period, you who are now 
in the freshness and blossom of your youth, may bring 
important changes in God’s mode of dealing with you. It 
may cut you off from the Christian privileges you now 
enjoy. It may, by some visitation of divine Providence 
which it shall bring, so disturb and agitate your mind 
with cares or sufferings, as to render you incapable of cool 
reflection. It may place you in circumstances in which it 
shall be morally impossible for you to make God your 
friend, and to secure his protecting care. In a word, if 
you do not accept the present call of God, and respond 
with a sincere and earnest heart, “My Father, thou art 
the guide of my youth,” it is highly probable that many 
of you at least will never ask his guidance till too late; 
and for the want of it will go astray, as so many have 
done before you, and miserably perish. Oh, is not this 
most eminently the fitting time for the final turning of 
your soul to God, in the recognition of him as your only 
sufficient guide ? 

Will you listen, then, to God’s gracious call at once? 
Through the great sacrifice of Calvary, the dying love of 
Jesus, you may become a child of God to-day, a holy, 
happy child, if you have not been one before. These 
hours of youth are flying, flying swiftly, like vapours 
driven by the wind. Onward—onward to all that is 
serious in life, in death, and in the eternity beyond, ycu 
are hastening rapidly, with the steady march of time. 


246 GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 


The question what shall be your characters and destiny 
will soon be unalterably settled. Shall it be settled 
well? Would that I had the power to lay this solemn 
question, in all its proper weight, upon each of your 
souls! Would that I had the power to uncover in 
your sight the perils that shall certainly attend your 
every step in life; and then that I might rend before 
your eyes the mighty veil that now conceals the secrets of 
that tremendous future down whose interminable ages 
each soul for itself is ere long to begin its flight! Then 
you might see how blessed and glorious you may be, if 
you will but at once submit yourselves to the kind leadings 
of Eternal Love; and how fallen, ruined, and unalterably 
wretched you must be, if you reject God’s guidance, and 
so are lost to good. At least you will bear me witness, 
when you and I shall meet,—as meet we shall before 
God’s great tribunal,—if it be found that, refusing to 
take his guidance, you were hopelessly undone, that 
you perished not unwarned, not without being tenderly 
entreated to accept the proffered guidance of that com- 
passionate and loving Father who had it in his heart to 
receive you as a child, and to love and bless you evermore. 
“The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from 
evil, that is understanding.” 


THE VALUE OF A LIFE, ETC. 247 


XY. 


Ohe Value of w Hite as related to our Time. 


LUKE x. 23, 24: “ And he turned him unto his disciples, and said 
privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: for L 
tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things 
which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which 
ye hear, and have not heard them.” 


Woe our blessed Lord wished his disciples to under- 

stand when he addressed to them these words was 
this,—that they ought to esteem it a great advantage to 
live in his time, to hear his words, and to see his mighty 
works. As compared with the ages in which the kings 
and prophets lived, who had predicted, and longed to see, 
the day when the Messiah, the Hope of Israel, should 
come, the era in which Christ appeared and exercised his 
ministry among men was as the sunrise to the glimmer of 
early dawn,—an era of pre-eminent light and opportunity, 
in which, rightly understood, it was indeed an inestimable — 
privilege to live. Taken in this view, the text naturally 
suggests the thought that the value of any human life 
depends essentially on the circumstances under which 
that life is to be lived. It is for the sake of this thought 
that I have called your attention to the passage. Nothing 
better occurs to me than to address you, as appropriate to 
this occasion, on the value of a life, as estimated in rela- 
tion to this our time, and to the present condition of the 
world. 


248 THE VALUE OF A LIFE 


Let the subject be distinctly understood. The value of 
any individual life, in given circumstances, will of course 
depend on the amount of natural capacity possessed, on 
the end proposed in living, and on the length to which 
the life extends. But it is not of these things that I 
desire to speak. I wish to take just the opposite view. 
I wish to show that, with a given capacity, a given recti- 
tude of purpose, and a given length of days, the value of 
a life in the present state of things, as regards ourselves, is 
vastly greater than it could have been at any former period 
of the world. 

Another word of explanation before proceeding with 
the subject. The value of a life. To whom? I shall per- 
haps be asked. To the individual himself; or to the 
world and the universe? Both, it may be answered ;— 
its intrinsic value in all its relations and results. The 
value of a life is proportioned to what is accomplished by 
it in the broadest possible estimate. 

What I have to show, then, in order to illustrate the 
truth derived from the text is, that, in respect to all the 
_ chief circumstances on which the value of a life must de- 
pend, our time has a vast superiority over all past periods 
of the world. 

I say then, first of all, that in no past age of the world 
have such means of individual development existed as are 
now enjoyed by us. 

As to the early intellectual and social condition of the 
Oriental nations, with the exception of the Hebrews, we 
know comparatively little. That of the Egyptians is 
involved in similar obscurity. No doubt that in the 


a 


x 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 249 


countries of the further East, in Media and in Persia, and 
also on the Nile, there was, at an early period, a very con- 
siderable amount of a certain kind of intellectual culture. 
There is ample evidence, however, that it was narrow in 
_its range, and confined to a particular class, or classes, in- 
cluding but a small portion of the people. Among the 
Greeks, education in art, letters, and philosophy, was cer- 
tainly carried to a high degree of refinement; and the 
Romans, on the basis of Grecian learning, wrought out for 
their time a splendid literature. But neither among the 
Greeks nor the Romans was knowledge widely diffused : 
the facilities for education were not accessible to the 
masses ; and while philosophers speculated acutely, both 
in the Old and the New Academy, and statesmen, orators, 
historians, and poets appeared in illustrious succession, it 
was nevertheless true that, for by far the greater portion 
of the population, the means of individual culture were 
very limited indeed. Without the printing press the dis- 
semination of thought was difficult and slow. 

Since the revival of learning in modern times, there has 
undoubtedly been a steadily advancing extension of know- 
ledge and education among the western nations. Italy, 
Germany, England, and France, have had their golden 
periods of intellectual development, the result of which 
has been works in the various departments of letters and 
science, which are not likely to perish so long as the world 
shall stand. But if we look, for example, at the condition 
of the great body of the Italian people in the best days of 
the Medici; or of the German people in the time of 
Frederick the Great, or of Luther; or at that of the 


250 THE VALUE OF A LIFE 


English people in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, or even 
of Queen Anne; or at that of the French people in the 
days of Louis XIV., it is plain that, in respect to the 
means of education, in the common meaning of the term, 
and still more in respect to other influences which tend - 
to make every man a man, those periods were far behind 
the present century. The difference in favour of the pre- 
sent is greater, in fact, than we find it easy to believe. 

We need not speak of the present state of other coun- 
tries. It will be sufficient for our purpose to confine our 
attention to our own; and when we assert that never 
before, since the world began, did any entire people enjoy 
such means of individual development as we are enjoying 
now and here, the only difficulty in substantiating the asser- 
tion lies in the abundance of the proof at hand. For what 
are the means by which individual life is awakened, stimu- 
lated, and matured into healthful vigour? Are schools 
essential? But when and where were schools of every 
grade, from the nursery to the university, brought so com- 
pletely within the reach of all who are willing to receive 
their benefits, as among ourselves to-day? Are the 
products of the press effective to the end? But was any 
people ever so completely deluged with newspapers, maga- 
zines, and quarterlies, with children’s books, school books, 
books in every department of literature and science, of 
philosophy and religion ; books of all prices, of all sizes, 
and on all conceivable subjects? Are words spoken by 
living lips adapted to quicken individual souls and elicit 
their hidden forces? Did ever a land resound from end 
to end and through all its deep recesses as does this, with 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 251 


harangues of all imaginable sorts—lectures, speeches, ser- 
mons, debates, forensic arguments and scholarly orations ? 
Is individual mind aroused and excited by the general 
spirit of society, the atmosphere of intellectual and moral 
life by which it is surrounded? Where was there ever 
such an intensity of social energy—such vehemence of 
thought and purpose, such burning, restless eagerness of 
soul—as we see glowing in all eyes, and breathing through 
all the activities of the social system, in this our time and 
country? And lastly, does Christianity, with her dis- 
closures of man’s personal responsibility and the grandeur 
of his being as related to God and immortality, with her 
holy inspirations, and her manifold vitalizing influences, 
act powerfully on individual man for his exaltation ? 
Where, then, or at what other time, has Christianity been 
brought to bear so widely, and directly, and with so little 
to obstruct her healthful action, on the hearts and lives of 
men, as in all the older portions of our land, where, as an 
all-pervading force, she exerts a moulding influence alike 
on institutions and on people? We are not saying that 
any or all these means of individual development are pro- 
ducing all the results to be desired ; or that in the matter 
of profiting by them, we have not many things to learn. 
We may have been, we may still be bad scholars, however 
good the school. But it is undeniable that the means 
themselves are such as were never enjoyed to an equal 
extent before. If there is not among us, as a people, 
more individuality—more force of personal character, in- 
tellectual and moral—or to say the whole in short, more 


real manhood and womanhood than have been found in 


252 THE VALUE OF A LIFE — 


other centuries, it can only be because we have not under- 


stood our birthright, and have failed to make the best use’ 


of our advantages. What is the truth on this point we 
will not now inquire. Enough that there is everything 
in our position that would seem necessary to bring out 
whatever may be in us, and to make the most of all our 
capabilities. So far as the value of a life depends on the 
means of individual development, it was never so great as now. 

I come then to say further, as a second thing, that never 
before did any people enjoy such liberty and scope of use- 
ful action as our time is now affording us. 

I do not here refer to our civil and religious freedom, 
except as these are the necessary conditions of all activity. 
It is tg the multitudinous openings for useful and honour- 
able action, the unequalled number and variety of prof- 
fered opportunities, that I have special reference. In no 
age has the restlessness of man failed to express itself in 
one way or another. But it has to a great extent been 
true in former centuries that few paths comparatively, 
leading to good and noble ends, have been open to the 
larger portion of society. In Babylon and Nineveh, in 
Egypt, in Greece and Rome, in the feudal ages of Europe, 
not only was there a lack of the means to produce a high 
degree of individual development, but what of such de- 
velopment there actually was, could not express itself in 
appropriate activities ; in part from the checks and _hin- 
drances imposed by despotic governments, and in part 
because the opening of the manifold chanuels of industry 
and enterprise is a work pertaining to a higher state of 
civilization than had then been reached. Not having open 


ipod See 


eS ee a ew ——=_ ee 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 253 


to it ways of good and wholesome effort, the force of 
society, by a sort of necessity, then expended itself in 
civil contests, in fierce and bloody wars, or in chimerical 
and fruitless undertakings, like the Crusades. In propor- 
tion as European civilization has advanced, there has been 
more of individual liberty and an increase of facilities for 
individual action there ; but within the present century 
there has been an advance beyond anything before con- 
ceived, and more among ourselves than anywhere else— 
not even excepting England, which in all healthful pro- 
gress is at the head of the Old World. 

Look a moment at the facts. There is no check to the 
liberty of individual action on the part of the government 
under which we live, except simiply what is demanded as 
a condition of social order. What that is right, and 
honourable, and good, is not every member of society free 
to do to the full measure of his capacity? And then what 
prizes—of wealth, of social happiness, of knowledge, of 
fame, of station, and of power, are not within the reach of 
even the most humble? What sort of talent is there to 
which there is not open some good and inviting field? 
Will a man till the ground? He is enabled now by 
science and mechanical skill to do it in the most produc- 
tive manner and with the least expenditure of labour ? 
Will a man engage in trade? What is there that is not 
made an article of traffic, from the very stones and the 
hills of sand and pebbles, up to the richest products of 
nature and of art; and whither can one look, over lands 
or seas, to the four winds of heaven, that he shall not see 


the beaten paths of commerce right before him, inviting 


254 THE VALUE OF A LIFE 


him to try his fortune if he will? Will a man speak ? 
There are thousands of listening ears awaiting him. Will 
he write? Millions of hungry readers are ready to devour 
every worthy product of his pen. Will he be a statesman? 
No hamlet in the land is so remote that his sayings and 
doings shall not be known and debated there. Will any 
one live in seclusion and give himself to thought? Electric 
wires and thundering trains will bring him incessant stimu- 
lants to thinking, and will enable him to transmit his 
thoughts to others, if he will, before they have had time 
to cool. Will one devote himself to philanthropic labours? 
He will neither want materials to work upon, nor sym- 
pathy and co-operation in his efforts. Will he rise to the 
height of Christian heroism, and, inspired with faith and 
love, attempt self-sacrificing toils in the dissemination of 
the Christian faith? He will find himself united with 
vast multitudes of kindred spirit, and will easily put him- 
self in connection with remotest regions of the world. I 
need not pursue this course of illustration. To every one 
of us there is given, by the time and place in which we 
live, a liberty for every sort of action, an extent and scope 
of influence impossible to any age preceding, and such as 
the men of other generations could never even have 
unagined. The reality is beyond their dreams. If the 
end of life is useful action, when were there such facilities 
as at this day? | 

Still further, it may be added, as a third fact in relation 
to our time, that never so much as now was right indi- 
vidual effort effective for great results. All ages have had 


those who, in comparison with others of their time, have 


agli © oh ceenlng x; 


o~ es es eS ee eae ee 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 255 


done great things, and have left enduring marks of their 
power upon the world. But how many of the best and 
wisest of other times have laboured all their lives to accom- 
plish some noble purpose, for which their age was not 
prepared, or in the way of which the existing state of 
things arrayed a thousand difficulties! How many of the 
choicest and most gifted spirits of our race have sown in 
tears, through years of patient toil, the seed of blessings 
not by any possibility to be reaped till long after they 
were dead! The memories of such are fragrant through 
the ages. They are God’s jewels, that have gleamed out 
often amidst surrounding rubbish. If there is any sight 
more noble than all others in this world, it is that of men 
or women expending their best energies upon some work 
of love, with their eyes fixed only on those who shall live 
when they have lain down, perhaps long, in the silent 
dust. This is pre-eminently the God-like in well-doing— 
the sublime spectacle of disinterested goodness. 

But after all, it is certainly to be regarded as a thing to 
be desired, to be ourselves permitted to reap, at least to 
begin to reap, where we have sown. It is a happiness to 
be placed in a position in which the ruling forces around 
us appear to be working with us, and not against us ; to 
see that the course of divine Providence, the currents of 
human thought and opinion, and the general movements 
of society, combine to give effect to our right endeavours, 
whatever their specific character may be. It is certainly 
a most natural and reasonable desire, that our well- 
directed efforts may be attended not only with the largest, 
but with the speediest possible results. 


256 THE VALUE OF A LIFE 


Now, Iam very far from saying that there are no diffi- | 


culties to be encountered in our time by those who strive 
to accomplish something worthy in their lives. There are 
now, and probably always will be, difficulties not only to 
be met, but to be strenuously wrestled with, in doing good 
in this evil world. The ample and unprecedented facili- 
ties for doing almost anything to which we have referred, 
by.no means presuppose the absence of opposing influ- 
ences. Labour itself is irksome; and by a law of our 
condition, as fixed by divine Providence, no considerable 
good can be attained without effort made with some degree 
of self-denial, and in opposition to some things which will 
test courage, energy, and patience. There would be no 
room for great and heroic conduct if such were not the 
case. 

But when I say that at no time before was individual 
effort so effective, so sure to be fruitful, and that speedily, 
of good results, I would have the following things con- 
sidered :— 

First, that along with means of individual development, 
and liberty and scope of action, there is in the world at 
large—in the more enlightened portion of mankind—a 
greatly increased susceptibility to new and right impres- 
sions. There is far less of ¢nertva, in man and in society, 
to be overcome, in the introduction of any new truth, 
the giving of any new impulse, the setting in motion of 
any new enterprise that can be shown to be at once 
possible and useful, than there ever was before. The 
rapid progress of art, science, intercommunication, and 
commerce, the collision of thought and interest in a thou- 


Pepsi ape acts ny 


ae eae ee ee ee 


Te 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 257 


sand ways unknown to other generations, have roused the 
popular mind from its former lethargy. It is awake, sus- 
ceptible, quick to apprehend. Instead of being wedded to 
the old, and prejudiced against the new, it is, perhaps 
even to a perilous degree, disposed to distrust the old and 
to crave and seize the new. Tn such a state of things, 
whatever is said or done with earnestness and power is 
sure to tell effectually. Seed sown, whatever it may be, 
is likely to come speedily to the harvest. 

A second circumstance that goes to the same point is, 
that the present seems to be peculiarly a crisis in the his- 
tory of nations and of mankind, on which great interests 
for the future are depending, There are such periods in 
individuai life. How often a young man is seen to be 
brought, as it were, to a determining point for all his 
coming years! Within a short space he will settle and fix 
his principles, his character, his plan of life and action. 
A iittle influence on him then becomes a most mementous 
influence. because it may decide so much in relation to ali 
his future history. Very much like this, I apprehend, is 
the present era in the progress of the world. It is true of 
the whole civilized world, to a great extent, it is eminently 
true in regard to our own country, that great issues for 
coming generations appear to be crowded into this period 
in which we live, to be decided, for better or for worse, 
within a comparatively limited time. The greatest and 
most vital questions in regard to education, to civil and 
religious rights and institutions, te government and laws, 
to philosophy, morals, and religion, have come up, in the 
general excitement of the day, for new and more thorough — 


258 THE VALUE OF A LIFE 


and searching discussion. These earnest discussions will 
settle, in our own case, right or wrong, things which will 
enter, as elements of life or death, the character and state 
of the mighty people that in the next and in succeeding 
centuries shall occupy and fill this land. To act now, 
therefore, is to act at the decisive moment,—as when a 
force comes into the field of battle just when the contest 
is the hottest, and victory is hanging in suspense! The 
greatest results may often be achieved, in such a special 
juncture, by doing what in ordinary circumstances might 
accomplish very little. We of the present generation may 
not only help to decide aright the great practical questions 
of our time, but we may see the effects of our influence to 
such an extent that we may be assured that victory in- 
clines towards the right, and so be able to anticipate the 
thanks that grateful posterity will render us. It is a noble 
thing to live when not only a few leading persons, but every 
individual, in proportion to what he is, may act with great 
results, at least the beginnings and the certainty of which 
he may also himself be allowed to see. Life, at such a 
juncture, must be allowed to have a special value. 

I will notice but one more feature of our time which 
stands in special relation to the present value of a life. I 
think we cannot be mistaken in affirming that never before 
was Christ, the Head of that divine kingdom which is to 
fill and transform the world, so manifestly as now bringing 
into effective action the great spiritual forces of that king- 
dom, I would not speak on this point in a vague and 
general manner. Let me explain precisely what I 


Wcall. 


es oe ee 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 259 


The view which divine revelation gives us, and which 
we as believers in that revelation take, in relation to the 
future of the world, is this: That Christ, as the Re- 
deemer of the world, has an invisible and spiritual do- 
minion over it and in it; that this kingdom essentially 
consists in the establishment of truth, and right, and love, 
as permanent and controlling forces, in the hearts of men ; 
that it is the setting up of this kingdom that 1s to bring 
in that far better and happier period of the world—that 
golden age—for which humanity is sighing, and to which 
the hopes of the human race continually go forward ; and 
that, for the evolution of the powers and influences of this 
kingdom, Christ has from the day of his ascension been 
administering the providential government of the world. 
These, I say, to us are simple facts of revelation. 

But it has never been the method of Providence to lead 
on faster than mankind, or at least the most advanced 
portion of mankind, were able to follow. It has plainly 
been the purpose of Christ to bring in his reign in such a 
way as at once to help on and to keep pace with the cul- 
ture and progress of the race. As he said to the disciples, 
“T have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear 
them now,” even so in effect he has been saying to the 
people of past centuries, | have many works to do, many 
spiritual forces to reveal, in the moral regeneration of the 
world, but ye are not ready for them yet. So the day of 
his special power has lingered. Things have progressed, 
sometimes with powerful impulses, yet the general progress 
has seemed slow. Good men have lived, and laboured, 
and suffered—have ers os waited, and died—sus- 


260 THE VALUE OF A LIFE 


tained by steady faith, without having seen the signs of 
the coming of the Son of man with power. 

But consider what has happened within the present 
century, by which the powerful coming of Christ to set 
up his reign is seen. The last century closed with two 
great acts—the achievement of American freedom, which 
was as the rising of a day star to the nations; and the 
dreadful tragedy of the French Revolution ; and these, 
with the subsequent career of the first French emperor, so 
shattered the old foundations of tyranny in Europe and 
America, that the whole structure has tottered ever since, 
and cannot be made secure. Oppression may linger for some 
time longer, in the shape of governmental despotism or of 
domestic slavery ; but He who comes to preach deliver- 
ance to the captive, and the opening of the prison doors to 
them that are bound, has given it the death-blow. Dve it 
must and will, in spite of all the commercial and political 
doctors in the world. It is a question of mere time. 

At the opening of this century, Christ, who is the Life, 
wrought in his Church the beginnings of a new spiritual 
vitality, the fruit of which was a waking up to the great 
duty of carrying the blessings of Christianity to every 
creature. So was inaugurated the missionary work which 
is never to cease till not only the mountain-tops of the 
long benighted lands shall all be gilded by the beams of 
the Sun of righteousness, but even the lowliest valleys 
shall be flooded with his light. 

The Holy Scriptures, which testify of Christ, embody 
his teachings, reveal immortality, redemption, and eternal 
retribution, and which are one of the great moral instrumen- 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 261 


talities of his kingdom, in connection chiefly with the mis- 
sionary work, he has caused to be translated into more 
than a hundred and fifty tongues, including all the most 
important languages of men. So He who is to reign is 
applying his truth to the universal heart of humanity. 

Finally, the Holy Spirit, the highest and most wonder- 
ful and effective force of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, 
and which it is given him to dispense, he has poured out, 
within this century, to an extent and with a power of 
operation which has put cavillers to silence, and given 
even the great body of believers a new conception alto- 
gether as to the part he has to do in bringing the world 
to its coming day of joy. 

What impressive illustrations of the power of Christ in 
the dispensation of the Spirit, and of his grace in bestow- 
ing pardon and peace with God, have the last two or three 
years afforded in all parts of our country! What age be- 
fore has ever witnessed such? Wonders of a similar kind 
are now occurring in long-afflicted Ireland, and even in 
staid and unimpulsive Scotland herself. In England, too, 
the good work is now begun ; and in Norway and Sweden 
it is going on with power. Christian life, Christian unity 
in spirit, Christian philanthropy and love, Christian acti- 
vity and zeal—these are the blessed fruits of the Holy 
Spirit’s work. . 

In these and other similar things, which must be traced 
directly to the power and grace of Christ, as the Head of — 
the kingdom of God among mankind, we not only find the 
proof that he is more than ever revealing himself as intent 
on subduing the world unto himself, but we find also the 


262 THE VALUE OF A LIFE 


ground of reasonable expectation that he is now going on 
to make, comparatively, a short work on the earth. We 
seem to see him come at last, in the fulness of time, to 
work mightily in his people, and, as it were, to put him-. 
self at their head for the speedy conquest and moral puri- 
fication of the world. Whether, therefore, we think of the 
privilege of seeing all these glorious revelations of Christ’s 
agency and headship, or of the honour and the happiness of 
being permitted for years to co-operate with him in the 
great movements he is starting, a life at such a time must 
have a special value—a value, as compared with a life lived 
in other periods of the world, beyond all computation. 
Blessed, indeed, are the eyes that see the things that we 
see, and that hear the things that we hear—far, far beyond 
the blessedness of those who lived when Christ was on 
the earth, or at any other time before or since his coming. 

Let us pause, then, at this point, for time will not allow 
us to prolong our necessarily imperfect sketch of the strik- 
ing features of our day—let us pause and deliberately esti- 
mate, each one, as an individual, the value of a life at such 
an era, Quite probably, we have not seriously considered 
it. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to appreciate it 
fully. We can only approximate the truth by dwelling 
distinctly on the fact, that, as regards the means of im- 
proving to the utmost all our capacities; the liberty of 
acting as we will, with unlimited room for choice ; the op- 
portunity to labour with the highest effectiveness to ac- 
complish something worthy and to make our mark upon 
the world; and the privilege of feeling that, more sensibly 
than any before us ever could have done, we are entering 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 263 


into the decisive movements of Jesus Christ for the re- 
covery of the world to truth, and righteousness, and love 
—it is only, I say, by dwelling on the fact that in all 
these things we have a vast advantage over those who 
have lived before us, that we can come in any good degree 
to comprehend the real worth of this short life which it is 
given us to live—which we are living, in these auspicious 
circumstances. How incalculable the loss to us, if we so 
fail to reflect on our position as that we do noé compre- 
hend the truth! 

For what that is admirable in character, that is right and 
noble in action, that is glorious in achievement, and honour- 
ableand blessed in active sympathy with Christ, is not within 
ourreach? We may, certainly, even in our favourable cir- 
cumstances, live to but very little purpose. We may live 
selfishly, pursuing mean and unworthy ends, to make a 
little show, to hoard up wealth with greediness, to chase 
any of the vain shadows of earthly and sensual good. 
But if we know the worth of life, and act accordingly, 
what may not we who are alive at this day, or some of us, 
become before we die?. What energy of virtuous action, 
what beautiful examples of well-doing, in the various 
spheres of duty, may we not exhibit to the world ? What 
may we not, in part or whole, accomplish, in which we 
and others may rejoice, and for which this and other times 
will cherish and bless our memories? What wondrous 
changes in the condition of the world, involving the vastly 
augmented welfare of our race, may we not see wrought 
out by Christ, and in part through our own instrumen- 
tality, before our sun of life shall set ? 


964 THE VALUE OF A LIFE 


These questions may be appropriately put to all in every 
assembly. They have, however, special force as addressed 
to those who are yet young. You, my young friends, 
some of you may live to see the close of the present cen- 
tury ; and if the forty years last past have wrought such 
changes, the forty that shall follow will, with the greatest 
probability, bring others still more wonderful. The year 
1900 will see the population of our country spreading from 
the one ocean to the other. It will see us, if a united 
people, and still smiled upon by Providence, the most 
powerful people on the globe. It will see the institution 
of slavery hasting to its end, if not destroyed. It will see 
the power of Christianity in this land and in the world 
prodigiously augmented. It will see the hopes of humanity 
far brighter, as the prospects of the future will be far more 
bright and cheering, than they have ever been before. O 
young man, young woman, that may live to reach that 
date, will it not then seem to you to have been a thing 
sublime and blessed to have not only lived in the midst 
of such events, but also to have borne in them some ear- 
nest, high, and honourable part!. Yes, yes, it will; be- 
lieve it, and wake now fully and finally to the inexpres- 
sible value of a life in such a time as this in which it is 
given you to live! But most of us now here will have 
closed our mortal course long before the last sands of this 
century run out. It is for us to make the most of every 
moment that remains. 

Let me only say, in closing, that with the thought of 
the divine goodness, in permitting us to live in such a 
period, we may quicken our gratitude to-day. While with 


Pa eee & 


AS RELATED TO OUR TIME. 265 


a thousand tender and pleasant recollections we offer 
thanks to Almighty God, while in our families our hearts 
are gladdened with influences of cheerfulness and love, let 
us reflect how widely different had been our lot in any of the 
centuries gone by. For all the good and hopeful things 
that it is now given our eyes to ‘gee and our ears to hear, 
for everything that enhances the value of a life in this 
our native land, and in this our most momentous era, let 
us render hearty thanksgiving to our God. May his 
Spirit so touch our hearts as to call forth from them that 
genuine gratitude which is “the perfume of the soul!” 
May he give us some just sense of our high responsibility, 
and kindle in our souls such Christian aspirations, such 
lofty purposes, such firm resolves to make the utmost of 
our lives, that, having given our years to Christ, and done 
our utmost in his service, we may go to our graves at last 
as the summer sun goes down serenely to his setting, and 
keep an eternal thanksgiving with the Church of the re- 
deemed amidst the splendours of his throne !* 


* The above.discourse was delivered on occasion of the Annual Thanksgiving. 


heir 


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Aas pie nat Sere an ee 
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